The Trick is to Keep Breathing
by Enlee
Summary: Wilson takes a tumble...HouseWilson. Chapter 42 is now up. The Last Chapter. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I'm baacckkk. Here is the sequel (more or less) to "Anything and Everything". Not much here in the first chapter, mostly fluff. Don't hate me._

* * *

A bleak day turned into a bleak evening with non-stop rain and sour moods from everyone I had the misfortune of making eye contact with. The gun metal gray clouds were going to hang around for a while but at least the rain was supposed to ease up by morning. I'm sure all the people flooded to the south of us are just thrilled with the news. It was the kind of dreary day that made me thankful for a warm, dry apartment and a hot meal in my stomach. Afterwards I was channel surfing and came across a documentary about a haunted house in Georgia. Looking back, I can clearly see that fate was playing a cruel trick on me. But then again, I wasn't looking for a kind of sign from the sky. I was just watching TV. 

"Oh, come on," Greg muttered with more than a little bit of distaste. "You don't actually believe that crap, do you? Isn't there anything else on?"

He had been trying to keep a cold at bay with limited success. He was pale; no fever as of yet, but his sinuses were clogged all to hell. On top of that, his leg was bothering him more than usual. He was lying on the sofa with his head in my lap and the heating pad on his leg, turned up as high as he could stand it. And the gloomy weather did little to improve his already less-than-stellar spirits, as did my choice of television viewing.

"The good doctor doesn't believe in the paranormal?" I asked, putting the remote out of his reach.

"As much as I believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and smart blondes," he snorted. "I believe in what I can taste, touch, see, smell and hear. Everything else is a whimsical fake buffet line to feed the hordes of gullible saps. Is _The L Word _on tonight?"

"Tomorrow night," I told him, much to his dismay. Maybe someday he'd tell me about his strange attraction to lesbians. "No ghosts for you, Greg? There's a zillion haunting documentaries like this one. Obviously some people believe in them."

"Some people are morons."

"That doesn't mean they're wrong."

"That doesn't mean they're right, either. Those yahoos that lived in Amityville were exposed as a major league fraud, but still like to insist it was all real and scary. They believed their own act. Idiots. The guy who wrote the book didn't even meet them in person, for crying out loud."

"I read that book when I was a teenager" I admitted. "It freaked me out. To this day I don't like the name Jodie."

"Pussy," Greg sneered.

"Did you read the book?"

"No, and I never will. I'll stick to _real_ fiction, thank you, not some half-baked ghost story dreamed up to cash in on an authentic tragedy. Do you have a copy of _The Exorcist_?"

"Book or movie?"

"Book. Isn't that what we're talking about? Books?"

"I thought we were talking about half-baked ghost stories. _The Exorcist _was based on a true story, you know."

He tilted his head back and looked up at me. "_Supposedly_ true story. A little more believable since priests don't usually tell big whopping lies to make a quick buck. Vow of poverty and all. And last I heard William Peter Blatty didn't go around saying the vomit-spewing, head-turning daughter of an actress was a real event. Do you have the book?"

"No, I don't. Do you really want to read it? I can get you a copy. I was going to stop by the bookstore tomorrow anyway."

"Yes, I want to read it," he smiled. "You're too kind, Jimmy."

"And you're too much."

"Way better than being not enough. That's what Captain Howdy says. He also says to tell you that it's an excellent day for an exorcism."

"Julie got the ouija board in the divorce," I said, then met his gaze again. "Do you want me to change the channel?"

"I'll live," he sighed and shifted the heating pad. "I wanna see what these morons have to say about their spooky little friend."

"An evil spooky little friend. It made their lives a living hell."

"Am I supposed to care?"

"The people in the haunted house did."

"Like I said, they're morons."

"They could hardly ignore the _severe_ haunting. It threw dishes, scratched them, all kinds of horrible stuff."

"Don't move into creepy houses, people. That will come back to haunt you."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: More fluffy stuff. I promise to get to the meat of the story in the next chapter or two. Until then, fluff away!_

* * *

"Haunted. That's uh...really, really _bad_, Greg," I said, but couldn't help giggling like a moron at his stupid joke. 

"Bad joke for a bad show. I'd say we're even now," he said with a giggle of his own.

"In that case, you can get your own damn book," I told him, gently pushing him aside so I could sit up. "You didn't drink all the beer, did you?"

"There should be a two left. Perfect for _us_."

"You want one?"

"Damn right."

As I went to get the beers I heard him say, "You'll get me the beer but not the book. A man of many faces, too many to label you two-faced. Next you're going to tell me you believe in ghosts."

"I consider myself open-minded on the subject," I told him as I handed him his drink and took back my place on the sofa. "There are things in this world that can't be explained. That's a fact of life, whether we like it or not."

"Oh man...you believe that shit? Jimmy, I'm disappointed in you. As a man of science surely you can see that nobody has proven that ghosts exist."

"I'm open-minded. I didn't say I believed it," I corrected my friend. "Have I ever seen one? No. But I'm hardly in a position to dismiss all the millions of people who claim to have seen a ghost. Also, my grandmother Betty used to tell me stories about how a ghost haunted the house she grew up in."

"Really?" Greg raised his eyebrows and grinned. Still an utter and complete skeptic, but I knew he'd want to hear the story anyway.

"Yup. The ghost was _her_ grandmother."

"No joke?"

"Not to my grandmother. She told me all about how when she was a girl, she used to see this strange old lady in an old-fashioned dress around the house. Of course, no such lady lived there. Then pieces of jewelry would disappear–her mother's wedding ring, a locket, a bracelet. They would always turn up exactly three months after they vanished in weird places. The wedding ring turned up in the coffee. She swears she saw her mother scoop out the ring when making the morning coffee."

"Ooooo..._scary_," Greg sneered, though he didn't tell me to stop talking.

"That went on for a few years," I continued as if he had never said anything. "The ghost was never threatening and eventually she got used to it. Of course, nobody believed her about the ghost and was blamed for the wandering jewelry. Apparently, Grandma Betty was the only who saw her. Then in high school, she was doing some kind of genealogy class project. She found all the old photo albums and lo and behold, there was the ghost, her grandma, staring back at her in one of the old photo albums. She had lived in that house for a while, but died before Grandma Betty was born. I guess grandma's grandma liked the place and never left."

"How cliché."

"That very well may be, but cliché's have to start somewhere."

"Ghosts aren't real."

"Can you prove that, Greg?"

"Am I supposed to?" A pause while he took a long pull of his beer. "Do you think Grandma Betty was telling the truth?"

"I suppose she saw _something_. The house doesn't exist anymore so I can't really go and see. And I never knew my grandmother to lie."

"Everybody lies. That's a fact of life you should be well award of by now."

"Yeah, well, I can't prove she was lying so I'll just to take her word for it."

"_Hmph_," Greg mumbled, obviously unimpressed with my story and my reasoning to defend Grandma Betty. "Next you'll be telling me that your Uncle Bob was kidnapped by aliens along with some cows."

"I don't have an Uncle Bob and none of my relatives have mentioned little green men or mysterious flying cows."

"Bigfoot got to them before they could tell anyone else." He drained his beer and handed me the empty bottle as if it had my name on it. "Forget the ghosts. I'm going to bed."

"Already?"

"I'm tired and I'm not feeling so hot. Be sure to test me for the plague tomorrow." He limped off to the bedroom, only emerging briefly to gulp down a Vicodin brush his teeth before finding his way to dreamland.

Of course I'd buy him his precious book tomorrow. Why? I said I would.

A few hours later I climbed into my side of the bed. My side, _our_ bed. I loved it.


	3. Chapter 3

Fate was waiting for me that night, waiting for me to spin that wheel, waiting for me to get all the dominoes set up to so it could flick its wrist and knock them all down before my disbelieving eyes. Fate seems to think I need to learn a few more lessons. What those lessons are I can't really say. I'm not really interested in learning said lessons so much as I really want to know what I have done to deserve all this. It was bad enough the first time. Going through it all again is just torture without the rack and hot pokers.

I ended up staying at the hospital until well after dark. First there was one little emergency, then another, then another. Nothing life threatening, but I needed to make sure it didn't come to that the second I stepped out the door. Greg had already been gone for hours, still not feeling all that well. If he had been with me it all might not have happened. He would have told me to hurry up and we would have been out of there, on our merry way back home and I would have been none the wiser. Little did I know what I was going to almost literally walk into. I can't blame Greg, I can't blame myself, so I'm going to blame fate just because I can and because it's close and convenient. The blame belongs _somewhere_, be it a human or a force of nature. _Fate_ made Greg ill so he would be at home and out of the way. _Fate_ made Greg ask for the book. _Fate_ made me volunteer to buy it for him and brought me to this particular bookstore on this particular night. _Fate_ twisted the knife in my gut, bringing back all the worry, pain and misery ten-fold. Ignorance can be bliss, especially in cases like this. I would have been better off not knowing.

It was one of those horrible sticky summer nights where the air had a thickness, it felt like I was walking through soup. The humidity hovered around a thousand percent and successfully drained the life out of each and every person brave enough to step outside. No sign of rain, no sign of a cold front coming through, no sign of relief in the near future. Right now I'd give up a year of my life for a freak blizzard, or maybe six months if the humidity would go down a notch or twenty. Welcome to summer in the East.

Thankfully the bookstore had been paying its bills and when I stepped into the glorious air-conditioning, I nearly dropped to my knees and kissed the floor. The place was packed but I couldn't help but notice that very few people were carrying books. Everyone had the same idea: get out of the stifling heat for a while. I couldn't blame them. The temperature still hovered around eight-five degrees at 9 pm.

I took my sweet time, hovering around and sneak reading the magazines, scanning the titles of the new releases for something that caught my eye, browsing each and every title in my favorite genres to make sure a new title from my revered authors hadn't slipped under my radar. My book supply had dwindled down to nothing, that is, I had read every book I had brought with me to the apartment and needed to replenish my supply. One can read the same book only so many times before one starts looking at the back of the cereal box for fresh reading material. Lucky for me the bookstore was huge, filled with a little something for everyone, and by the time I tracked down a shiny new copy of _The Exorcist_ for you-know-who I had six new books for myself. Greg would probably steal one or two before I had a chance to read a word of them, but it was still a pretty good haul if I may be permitted to say so.

As I was standing in line to pay, some movement by the exit caught my attention. The door was opening and closing by itself, but it wasn't an automatic door. It was a big heavy metal door that seemed to weigh a ton after the hot and humid weather sapped all my strength. It opened again and I saw a figure through the pane. Someone out there was brave enough to battle the sticky evening and play doorman.

I paid for the books, collected the bag, and walked to the exit. The figure was peeking through the pane at me, and the door opened when I still a good fifteen feet away from it.

Outside the doorman turned out to be a disheveled homeless man, the kind I see all too often, sleeping in doorways, on benches, under trees. Carrying everything they owned around with them. This guy was no different, a scuzzy suitcase rested against the wall. He was dressed in a ragged tee shirt and jeans, his worn-out shoes had no laces. His stringy hair was tied back with dirty length of string. With one hand he held the door open for an older yuppie women while the other shook a stained Styrofoam cup in my direction. Coins clinked around in it.

"Got any spare change, mister?" the stranger croaked at me. His throat sounded like it was full of rocks. The shadow from the door made the lines on his face appear deep and jagged. Living on the fringes of society had definitely taken its toll on this guy.

"Sure," I said, and dug into my pockets for the change that seemed to magically accumulate there when I wasn't looking.

"It sure is hot tonight," the doorman said as he eyed me sorting through the coins.

"You got that right." I found three quarters and dropped them into the cup.

He peered into the cup and grinned at his good fortune. Those quarters probably made his night. "Thank you, mister. You have a good night and God bless you."

"You're welcome," I told him, and took a step away. As I did, the doorman turned and the light from the bookstore lit up his face.

And fate stepped forward and punched me in the stomach, and punched me again to make sure I got the point.

I hadn't seen him in ten years but once that face was in the light I knew it immediately. His eyes were dark brown. I recognized them because they were the same as mine. Fate put me on his doorstep, so to speak. I was looking at my brother.


	4. Chapter 4

"David?" I asked quietly, a glorified whisper, amazed that my voice worked.

He looked at me, red-rimmed eyes moving up and down, and a flicker of recognition rippled across his face. Or maybe I was just hoping too much and seeing things. No, I wasn't. He was my older brother, back from the dead.

"David, it's you. It's really you." I inched my way forward, not wanting to spook him. "It's me, James. Do you remember me?"

"James?" he grumbled in that gravelly voice that once sounded like mine. Who knows how much the endless supply of drugs and alcohol and all the prolonged exposure took to destroy it. He was only two years older than me and had aged about a million years in the decade he had been missing, only a grim shadow of his former self. A man once full of promise was now withered husk blowing through the breeze. "No, man, I don't know no James."

A wasted life. It felt like a knife twisting deep in my gut. He had planned to be a doctor too.

Another careful step forward. "David, please, it's me James. Your brother. Please tell me you remember." My voice began to crack. "All these years, I thought you were dead…"

"Stay away." Feeling threatened, he backed up toward his suitcase, holding a hand out to keep me at bay.

"You're alive. I can't believe it."

"Don't touch me."

"David…" I stepped forward, too fast for my brother. He clocked me with a left hook and all I saw were stars.

I don't know how much time passed between the stars finally fading away and the fellow bookstore customers helping me to my feet. My lip was cut and bleeding. A young man was babbling on his cellphone, I think he was talking to the police. Or maybe telling his girlfriend about the guy who just got his ass kicked. The bag of books was still in my hand. Someone said to call the police. David and his suitcase were long gone. Again. Missing again, and this time he would let himself be found. Not alive anyway.

* * *

"First your wife nails you with an ashtray, now your dead brother drops you with one punch," Greg said, handing me a bag of ice and joining me at the table. "You've got some serious family issues, Jimmy." 

I pressed the ice against my swollen lip and said nothing. A migraine was starting to pound its way through my skull, as if I didn't have enough to deal with already. I wished it had rained and given me an excuse to put off going to the bookstore. A flat tire, an unexpected patient emergency, anything but seeing my brother and the pathetic excuse of a person he had become.

"Jimmy, are you sure it was him?"

"Yes." The knife twisted deeper into my gut. Its blade was jagged and dull, but I didn't care.

"Did you tell the police?"

"Yes, not that it will do any good. They couldn't be bothered to find him ten years ago since it isn't a crime for an adult to disappear if he wants to, and they aren't exactly going to comb the streets to look for him now."

"He assaulted you," Greg said pointedly, his glare hard and serious. "I hope the police remembered to write that down. They are supposed to look into assaults and missing people and other things like that. Isn't that what our tax dollars pay them to do?"

"He gave me a fat lip. I could have done that myself by walking into a door."

"Jimmy, he hit you—"

"Yeah, he hit me." I was getting angry. A decade of pent-up anger, guilt, sadness, dread, and worry began to boil up to the surface. "If the police ever find him he'll be a homeless derelict in jail instead of a homeless derelict sleeping in a cardboard box."

Greg sighed and gathered some patience from a deep hidden reserve. "What happened? Why did he leave to begin with?"

"He decided that drugs were better a choice than med school."

"What kind of drugs?"

"Crack, booze, pretty much anything he could get his hands on." I closed my eyes and choked down the bitter lump in my throat. "Every cent that supposed to put him through college went up his arm. The last time I saw David, before tonight that is, he had gone through all his money and pawned whatever wasn't nailed down looking for his next hit. There was my brother on a filthy street corner trying to find a drug dealer, and there was nothing I could do about it."

"Didn't you try to get him into rehab?"

"_Of course I did!_" My anger blew like a volcano. Somehow I managed to pull myself together, counting backwards from 100 until I didn't feel the need to smash everything in sight with a sledgehammer. "My mother," I continued in an amazingly calm voice considering what I had been through in the past hour, "she was devastated when he left. She watched him turn from a wonderful intellegent man with the whole world ahead of him to a rattled, paranoid drug addict almost overnight. It was so sad. It just broke her heart."

"What now?" Greg asked. "Are you going to look for him?

"No. Now I have to tell her that David is still alive, a filthy homeless wreck, and break her heart all over again."


	5. Chapter 5

For the last few months Greg and I had settled into a routine. Nothing too exciting and that's exactly how we liked it. He was right about one thing: I did like being just a partner. I wasn't expected to be perfect, to fix every little thing, to make every problem magically disappear with lightening speed. That albatross is gone from around my neck and I couldn't be more grateful.

In other words, things were going well until tonight. For the first time in my life I felt completely comfortable with who I was, felt comfortable in my own skin. Then a ghost from my past came back to haunt me in the worst way possible. Now there was a cinderblock around my neck, threatening to drag me to the bottom of the ocean. And I had a gut feeling that things were going to get much, much worse before they got better.

Around the time David disappeared Greg had been more of an acquaintance than a close friend. By the time we really got to know each other I had given up hope of ever seeing David again unless it was at a morgue and never mentioned him. Then last year we ended up on the same street corner where I saw my big brother looking to score his next hit before he disappeared into oblivion. I spilled my little secret.

For the most part Greg managed to keep his mouth shut about my missing brother. I really didn't know why. Maybe it's because he never knew David. Maybe he knew how much it hurt me then and now. Or maybe, just maybe, it was one of those rare times Greg didn't have anything to say. I picked all of the above just to be on the safe side.

Before the migraine threatened to cave my skull in I heard Greg ask me if I was going to call my mother. It was after eleven. People only call this late when there's bad news. I decided to wait and think this whole thing through. Was it worth breaking her heart again? I didn't know. All I knew right then was that I was going to be sick if I didn't take some ibuprofen and collapse in a dark room for a while.

Of course I couldn't sleep, but I didn't really expect to so it wasn't a huge disappointment. As the migraine drained away I paged through my memories of David. They were old and yellowed and faded, but some of them were the best memories I had. All of us playing volleyball in the backyard during the summer and football in the fall. The one Hanukkah when Dad bought us the Atari video game system and we thought it was the coolest thing ever. David and I played _Space Invaders_ for nine hours straight. Then there was the one winter when the three Wilson brothers built a seven foot snowman in the front yard. It had a scarf, a hat and a pipe. Mom took a whole roll of pictures with us and the snowman. About five days later we woke up to find some moron had knocked it down, stole the scarf and the hat, and broke the pipe in half. Oh well. Some of those pictures still grace the mantel above the fireplace at my parents house.

David was a good guy and a good brother; a man worth remembering. To this day I still don't know why he was stupid enough to try crack.

The apartment was quiet, the only sounds coming from the occasional passing car and the tap of Greg's cane. The quiet was wonderful, soon the migraine was just a bad headache and the nausea was gone. The ibuprofen pushed the pain in my swollen lip down to a dull ache. A few minutes later I heard Greg limp to the bathroom and brush his teeth.

He came into the bedroom and climbed into his side of the bed without a word. He knew I was still awake but didn't say anything. Neither of us did. Silence covered the room like a thick quilt. It wasn't deafening, it was a good, peaceful silence. I could grieve for my big brother and all the lost possibilities without being disturbed.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. One of us had to break the silence.

"You thought your brother was dead," Greg said.

"Yes," I answered.

"But your mother doesn't."

"No. She's never given up the hope that David will come back."

"So now comes the big decision." He was on his back, staring at the ceiling just as I was. "Do you let your mother hang on to that fleeting hope and let her remember her son as he was, or do you crush that hope and tell her what he has become?"

"David was a good man."

"I'm sure he was."

"He made one bad choice and–"

"And he's going to spend the rest of his life paying for it. I know how that goes. Are you going to tell your mother?"

After a long pause I finally answered, "No, I'm not."

"You're not? Why?"

"The hope that he will come back is the only thing Mom has left of him. I don't want to be the one to take it away."

"I think you made the right decision, Jimmy."

"Thank you. If I ever see David again, I'll be sure to tell him that." Ten years of long-lost bitterness crept into my voice.

"You're not going to see him again." Greg wasn't being cold or cruel, just blunt. The truth hurts and no amount of sugar-coating could make this truth any less painful. "And your mother is never going to see him again. Your brother is gone."

"I know, Greg. I know."

"Yes, you do know. You made the right decision. I can only hope that one day you'll actually believe it." He turned over, his back facing me. The conversation was over. Good thing, really. I didn't want to talk anymore either.

I inched my way over and wrapped myself around him. He took my hand and held it as I quietly hoped my brother was okay. The silence covered us up again.


	6. Chapter 6

Something was touching me, tickling along my scalp down to my neck. It wasn't going away. I slapped at it and it still didn't go away. The cool, callused musicians fingers lightly brushed my skin.

Greg was propped up on his elbow, sheets gathered around his waist, staring down at me, running his fingers through my hair and down my neck over and over again. Up and alert even at this early hour. A true insomniac if one ever existed. Compared to him, I sleep like the dead. Who knows how long he had been awake and amusing himself with his weird fetish for my hair. One of these days I might get around to asking what he found so damned fascinating about it.

"Good morning, sunshine," he said salaciously as I blinked and tried to focus on the face hovering above me.

"Morning," I muttered and met his eyes. "Having fun?"

"Yes, I am. Thank you for asking. You're cute when you're asleep, all curled up like an overgrown puppy dog."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said with an obvious roll of my eyes that he thoroughly ignored. "I thought I was cute when I was all hot and bothered."

"That, too," he grinned. "I'm just watching over you. I have to keep an eye out for what's mine."

"And what would that be?"

"I thought I was being crystal clear," he told me with a slight frown of disapproval. "We might share this here bed, Jimmy, _our_ bed, along with anything and everything else under this roof; but _you_ belong to _me_."

"So I'm your property now. Thanks."

"You don't have to thank me now, but believe me, you'll thank me later."

"So, Greg, I suppose you belong to me now."

"It's only fair," he deadpanned. I had no idea if he was attempting a serious conversation or babbling away just to hear his own voice.

"Do I have any say in this?"

"Nope. My Jimmy needs some looking after." Still moving his hand through my hair. He wouldn't stop until I got up and left the room.

"What? Are you saying that I need a babysitter?"

"I'm saying that since you've had a bombshell or two dropped on you, you need someone to help you get back on your feet. As of right now, I don't see a long line of people volunteering for the job."

"Job? What the hell are you talking about? Am I some kind of burden to you, Greg?"

His expression suddenly turned stoic and serious. "I never would have let you set foot in the door if you were. You've been through a lot in the past few weeks and I would have to be blind, deaf, dumb, and numb to not think it hasn't had some kind of affect on you."

My third divorce, my lovely bout with shingles, my ups and downs with Greg, and now my brother; they all swirled through my mind like a tornado. I sighed and looked away.

"Your brother doesn't pack much of a punch. Your lip isn't swollen anymore."

I sighed again. "Don't start."

"Am I tarnishing the memory of your dear sweet brother?"

"Stop it, right now. Just stop it."

"I owe as much to your brother as I do to your wives, Jimmy." In other words, he didn't owe them a goddamn thing and they could go to hell for all he cared. I didn't bother to point out he was right and still looked away, my eyes focused on the spill of sunlight next to the bed. "I'm not going to waste my time dwelling on his fate."

I turned to his blue eyes. "What about me? What am I supposed to dwell on in the meantime?"

"Whatever your little heart desires. I'm not going to stop you. If I may offer this piece of advice: let go of your guilt. You don't owe David anything, either. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved, not ten years ago and not last night."

My eyes went back to the sunlight. "Thank you. I feel so much better now."

He cupped my chin and turned my head back to him. "The truth hurts, Jimmy. I can't make the truth any better. Since I never had a crack-addict brother to deal with, I can't say how much it hurts."

"You don't even want to know."

"No, I don't. All I know is that it hurts you, and that hurts me." He lay down and rested his head on my chest. "You belong to me, Jimmy, and I'm not about to let you go for anything or anyone, not for any price."


	7. Chapter 7

"Not for any price," I muttered to myself. "So basically you're saying I'm priceless. I like that sound of that."

"And I like the finer things in life," he said, tilting his head up at me. "Only the best for _moi_. That includes my bedmates. I could have called you a queer hypocrite again, but after that thing with your brother I figured you needed some cheering up."

"Let's not talk about David right now. That would cheer me up."

"What should we talk about, if not your precious brother? Let's see, the weather is clearing up and how do you think the Yankees are going to do this year...?"

"Anything but my brother is fine with me," I said, trying to push the memories of the night before into the cabinet in the back of my mind. I'd look them over later. "Remind me again, why am I a queer hypocrite?"

"Because I said so," he said stoically, reaching for his pill bottles.

"I suppose that's reason enough for you, not that you need a reason to begin with. Do you really consider a queer hypocrite to be _priceless_, Greg?"

"Don't you?" Greg chuckled, downed a Vicodin and some cold medicine, and propped back up on his elbow. "You're a bisexual Jewish thrice-divorced doctor, a liar, a cheater, and king of the queer hypocrites. How many people can be described like that? No one else, except _you_. That makes you one of a kind, Jimmy. There's no one else in the world like you. Unique. Special. Priceless. Just like _me,_ but in a completely different way, of course."

I stared at him for a few beats and said, "I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted."

"Be both and you won't have to choose. You have your little flaws, and I have mine. Face it, we were made for each other." The chuckling continued. "So different, yet so alike. We better be careful or the force of our uniqueness-is that a word?- anyway, the sheer unstoppable force of our _unique selves_ might cause the universe to implode."

"That would be bad."

"Maybe not," he said. "You wouldn't have to pay alimony anymore."

* * *

"Good morning, Dr. Wilson," Cuddy greeted us with a blinding white smile. 

"Good morning, Dr. Cuddy," I smiled back.

"Keeping Dr. House here in line?"

"I try. _Try_ being the operative word."

"I'm a force to be reckoned with," Greg said. "Jimmy knows that all too well. He tries to keep me on a short leash, gets sucker-punched by his brother, fights to keep the world from imploding on itself, and still fills his quota of hitting on two nurses a day. A man of many talents."

"You're lucky to have such a capable, multi-talented man, Dr. House," Cuddy said teasingly. Her back was to me so she didn't see my face collapse when Greg brought up my supposedly private family trouble in casual conversation.

"Jealous?" he smirked.

"You wish," she replied.

"Has the J-Date well dried up again? Poor Dr. Cuddy...all those fabulous Wonderbras and nobody to help her take them off."

"Enough, House."

"If you ever want some help with your Wonderbras, just give Jimmy and I call..."

"Do gay men like to drool over women's lingerie and funbags?"

"You forget, dear Cuddy, we're not gay. Jimmy and I use both lanes on the freeway if you catch my meaning. We have the best of both worlds. That's a drool-worthy concept in itself."

"Are you finished drooling or am I going to have to double your clinic hours this week?"

"I'm finished...for now, but I'm sure I'll be saying hi to the twins again in the very near future. I'm sure they miss me as much as I miss them."

"And you, Dr. Wilson?" Cuddy asked, turning to me.

"Wonderbras were never my thing," I answered, hardly the response she was looking for but it was the only one I had at the moment. She thanked, a little more sarcastically than necessary, and I watched her disappear into the small crowd of patients, nurses and doctors down the corridor.

"Don't talk about my brother to anyone else, please," I told Greg as soon as Cuddy was out of earshot.

"Which brother? You have two."

"The one who sucker-punched me, as you so eloquently put it."

"I'm nothing if not eloquent."

"Greg, please, I'm serious. Nobody else needs to know," I said, folding my arms for emphasis. Not that he would notice or care. It just made me feel tougher.

"It took you nine years to tell me about David," he said, limping down the corridor to the elevator. "I guess it will be an even dozen before Cuddy gets the privilege of knowing your brother has risen from the dead and hustles strangers for nickels and dimes."

"She doesn't need to know anything about him." I said tersely, following him.

"I didn't either. Why did you tell me?"

"Because I wanted to. I thought I could trust you. Are you going to say I can't?"

"Do you trust me, Jimmy?"

"Yes, I do. I hope that trust isn't misplaced."

"No need to lock up for your darling, venerated trust. I mentioned a brother to Cuddy, not a certain homeless crack-addict long gone brother. She didn't ask me to elaborate. She doesn't know the difference. See, I'm priceless and trustworthy. What more could you ask for?"


	8. Chapter 8

The priceless Greg House actually kept his word and didn't mention my brother to anyone else. I still don't know if that was a favor to me or if he just felt it wasn't worth bringing up. Either way I was glad. I didn't need to go through all "Oh, I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do?" spiel from everyone again. Once is more than enough. Greg let me know he was thinking of me and David without using words, he kept playing with my hair. I finally asked him why he liked it so much. His answer? "Because I do." End of discussion.

Days and nights rolled into each other, nothing much happened that would make me wish my brain would rewire itself so I don't have to remember. The heat wave continued to roast the East, with temperatures soaring into triple digits and beyond. The humidity hovered around a thousand percent. Walking from my car to the hospital was like walking through soup. I hoped David found a cool place to stay.

Greg had _The Exorcist_ read in two days. When I asked if he liked it, he answered, "Intensely." I asked him to elaborate and he responded with, "Your thoughts are too dull to entertain," and took my copy of _The Silence of the Lambs_ without asking.

Now I may not want to rewire my brain when it comes to Greg and his quirks, but there are times when he makes me want to bang my head into the nearest wall, over and over again, until I put a hole in the wall or knock myself unconscious. Whichever comes first.

I talked to my mother on the phone. I told her about the various goings-on at the hospital, how things were going with Greg, when the heat wave would end and give us all a well deserved break. I didn't say one word about David. Mom had stopped asking if I had heard anything about him years ago. I promised that she would be the first to know if I heard or saw anything. I broke that promise. I knew I'd come to regret sooner or later, for now I just kept my trap shut. The responsible son, the one who become the doctor. The good boy. That's what I was supposed to be. Yeah right.

If the heat wave wasn't bothering me so much I'd find some time to hate myself again.

Greg told me to let go of my guilt. That's real easy advice to give when you don't have anything to feel guilty about. And I made the mistake of telling him that when he was in one of his fabulously weird moods. I didn't realize one of those moods had struck until he had me down on the couch, straddling my hips with my arms pinned above my head.

"What the hell are you doing?" I gasped. I couldn't struggle too hard without hurting his leg, a fact he took full advantage of.

"Keeping an eye on what's mine," he grinned devilishly. "I told you to let go of your guilt. When are you going to learn to listen to me?"

"Was I supposed to drop it like a hot potato? You should tell me these things, Greg."

"I thought you were smart enough to read between the lines. My mistake." His iron grip tightened around my wrists as I tried break free. I may as well have been handcuffed to a post. "Did I say you could move, Jimmy? No, I didn't. I'm sure you can read between the lines on _that_."

"Okay, I'm not moving," I said. Giving up would be the smart thing to do, but I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel so early in the game.

"That's more like it." He leaned in closer, that grin never losing an ounce of its devilishness. In complete control. Something he could never get tired of. He loved it too damn much. His other addiction.

"I take it you have me right where you want me," I said, stating the obvious.

"Exactly." He kissed me and didn't let me budge an inch to kiss back. No trace of scotch on his breath. Maybe it was the mixture of cold medicine and Vicodin that got him wired today. "The more you struggle, the longer you're going to be pinned down on this here couch. I'm still in charge around here."

"I can see that."

"Good. Don't you ever forget it." His knee dug into my side as I tried to turn over. "Willing to hurt a cripple to make your great escape? Am I going to have to tie you to a chair to make you sit still? I should tie you up anyway, put some of your ugly ties to good use for a change."

"Okay, Greg, you've made your point. You're in charge. Can I get up now?"

"No. You'll get up when I let you up and not one second sooner," he said with a low growl and began to nibble at my neck, eventually working his way up to my jaw and mouth, feeding a strange and raw emotion into his kisses that all but had me drowning. When these moods took him over, all rules and inhibitions ceased to exist in his little universe. "Tell me Jimmy, who do you belong to?"

"You. I belong to you," I panted, trying to catch my breath.

"Very good. That's one thing I love about you, Jimmy, you're so damned agreeable."

"I'm not in charge so I don't really have a choice. Can I please get up now?" My inhibitions were quickly slipping away. Lust will do that to you.

"No," he said curtly, and made me shut up with a few more deep, long, glorious kisses. I was going to go utterly and completely crazy if he didn't let me up. Pretty soon a judge would be able to say I was temporarily insane and can't be held accountable . "One last thing–who's in charge around here?"

"You are," I answered. It was what he wanted to hear because he finally let me kiss him back.

"That's right," he smiled and let me sit up. My wrists would probably be ringed with bruises in the morning. "As long is I'm in charge around here, I'll make sure that all my possessions are in good working order. Never let it be said that I don't look out for what's mine, especially my most prized possession."


	9. Chapter 9

If Greg is feeling possessive and weirded out, that can only mean he's feeling happy or threatened. I figured it was the former. If he really felt threatened he would have gone through with his threat and tied me to a chair. Greg doesn't express his happiness or feelings like normal humans do. In other words, him actually expressing his deep well-hidden emotions is a sight to behold. A rare thing, like Halley's Comet. I sometimes think he acts weird on purpose just to see if anyone is paying attention.

"I'm honored," I said with a bit of sarcasm thrown in for good measure, wondering how far he was going to take the 'prized possession' euphemism. He would only stop when he got tired of the game or I was driven half-crazy. Or both.

"You should be," he smirked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer. Nothing to indicate that he caught on to the sarcasm. "You do know that there is more to being my prize than the stereotypical trophy boy-toy, right?"

"I didn't realize there was such a thing," I told him. "And I'm not your boy-toy."

"Oh, believe it," Greg said as if he hadn't heard the boy-toy denial. "There needs to be something besides a handsome face to keep me coming back for more."

"Like what?"

"Well, there are too many who coast through life on their looks alone. If their heads weren't attached, the damn things would float away."

"So what does that have to do with us? Or does it have anything to do with us at all?"

"You're not head of oncology because you batted those big brown eyes at Cuddy and made her blush like a schoolgirl. She's not a moron when it comes to her job and neither are you."

"You've called me an _idiot_ before," I reminded him.

"Yes, well, you might not make the best decisions when it comes to your personal life, Jimmy. If you did, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Wait, you like me because I'm a moron when it comes to my personal life?"

"No, I like you because you're a smart man who can do his job. Weren't you listening to me? Idiot."

* * *

The heatwave finally broke and we got some much needed relief and rain. The temperature dipped below 'frying an egg on the sidewalk' levels for the first time in weeks. It was nice to be able to walk around outside with feeling like I was inside the world's largest oven. 

Driving to and from the hospital, I found myself scanning the faces everyone person who possibly be my brother, trying to catch another glimpse of him. A fleeting thirty seconds wasn't enough to make up for the decade of worrying and waiting and finally losing all hope. In searching for him, again, I knew that hope would snatched out from me for a second time, but I still had to look. David was everything a guy could want in a big brother. He helped me learn how to ride a bike, we played football in the backyard, we stayed up all night watching scary movies and freaked ourselves out, he helped me with the incoherent jumble that was called geometry. I went from idolizing him in my younger days to putting spare change in his dirty coffee cup. It's funny how life works. Absolutely hilarious.

I supposed he hadn't shown up on the radar because he had been here, there and everywhere. Drifting from city to city, who knows where he had been and the places he had seen, the things he had done to get his next meal or next fix. Some cosmic highway brought him back to Princeton and practically threw him my at my feet. I'm not complaining, but still, I wish I didn't have to see what he had turned into. That broke my heart more than anyone could know.

Then came the phone call I had been expecting for ten years. One part relief that it was finally over, one part wondering why the hell this had to happen to family, all parts grief and guilt and shame that I couldn't do something about it when I had the chance.

In some hell-hole of neighborhood in a more unsightly part of town that even the cops won't go to without five or six cars for backup, residents noticed a rotten smell coming from an old abandoned house. They thought it was a dead dog and when they went check it out, it turned out to be a person. He had been dead for several days. There had been a battered, scruffy suitcase with the body, along with a crack-pipe. In it was a driver's license from 90's that belonged to David Lawrence Wilson.

David Wilson had been reported missing in 1996 by his mother. He had fallen off the face of the planet and somehow found his way back to his hometown after all these years. It wasn't the homecoming his family was hoping for.

Mom called and told me that David had finally been found. Cause of death was ruled as an overdose. I still didn't tell her that I had seen him twelve days earlier. It didn't matter anymore. It wasn't going to bring him back.

People like to talk about closure. There's no such thing. While talking to Mom I realized that I hated David for what he put us through. Now it was over. The hate would go away but the memories never would. The memory of David was going to haunt until the day I died.

I hung up the phone and cried on Greg's shoulder until I was exhausted.


	10. Chapter 10

After David's funeral, the next few days were spent in a fog. Or maybe it was a few weeks; I couldn't keep track anymore. I was sleeping too much until David started to invade my dreams and then I didn't want to sleep anymore and couldn't without a sleeping pill or three. I wasn't eating enough and lost a good ten pounds before Greg noticed and forced waffles on me at breakfast and pizza at dinner. I may never eat pizza again.

The grief released its stranglehold and soon I was just feeling sad and angry and empty.

A memory switched itself on, a memory from just after David graduated high school. Hiding in the back of my mind all these years. I had no idea what suddenly triggered it, if anything. He told me that the day he knew he didn't have to go back was the happiest day of his life. If he had to do it all over again, he just would have dropped out and got his GED because high school was an enormous waste of four years. He had a GPA of 3.8 and graduated seventh in his class. I was of course puzzled and asked him if high school was good for anything. Surely he learned _something_ during his time there. I was joking around, but he wasn't. He told me he had learned three things: guilt, shame and humiliation. He never spoke of high school again.

Apparently my brother had a secret or two or twelve. I needed to talk to my mother again and ask her a few questions. But right now it was after midnight. I'd have to fit in the phone call tomorrow evening before Greg shoved another meal down my throat.

Greg had been strangely quiet about the whole David situation, offering a few words of comfort at oddly random moments. The man could talk and talk and talk until his vocal cords burst, but now his conversation was limited to making his trademark snide comments aimed at whatever movie he happened to be watching. I shouldn't have been surprised when he wanted to talk just as my sleeping pill was kicking in. He could have waited until morning but that would have been too easy. It could have just as easily been my newly skewered point of view. When the wonderful diphenhydramine wave rolls in, everything seems weird and out of place.

"How's my Jimmy doing?" he asked, at least polite enough to keep his voice down as he edged closer and indulged his favorite pastime of running his fingers through my hair.

"Your Jimmy just wants to sleep," I mumbled, vaguely wondering through the thickening drug-induced fog flowing over me if I had formed a coherent sentence.

"There's one thing I want to know," he said, sounding faint and distant, as if he were talking to me from the other side of the apartment. "Have you forgiven your brother?"

I had just enough time to answer, "There's nothing to forgive him for," before another wave crashed over me and pulled me under. Good night.

* * *

As I sat at the breakfast table, staring at a mound of waffles I was going to choke down or die trying, it occurred to me how much my admittedly bizarre relationship with Dr. Greg House had veered off the course I had so carefully plotted out many months before. He always struck me as someone who needed looking after; his self-destructive streak can spiral beyond any control if he isn't careful. A man who was brilliant doctor, who could save everyone except himself. That's all still true, mind you, and I keep an eye on him whenever possible. However, this is the second time when Greg has had to take some extra-special care of _me_. The irony has hit me over the head with a frying pan. The man I set out to take care of was now my keeper. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

"You were talking in your sleep last night," Greg said in a languid voice, like he was announcing we were out of cheese and cereal and wanted me to run to the store.

"Really?" I looked up and frowned. "What did I say?"

"I don't know. You were mumbling, I couldn't understand you. But you woke me up, obviously."

"Sorry."

"Nothing comes between me and my beauty sleep," he grinned. "Wake me up one more time, you and your nocturnal mumblings are going back to the spare bedroom."

"I'll see what I can do," I said with a shake of my head and roll of my eyes, then dug into the waffles. Apple cinnamon. Yum.

"Thank you," he replied with another grin. "You're looking more chipper today. Gained some of that weight back. All that midnight babbling clearly didn't disturb _you_."

"You talk in your sleep, too." I so gallantly informed him. "I should make you sleep on the couch."

He didn't seem surprised by that not-so-stunning revelation. "Do I say anything interesting?"

"Not really. Mostly incoherent mutterings with an occasional real word or two thrown in–'what...why? Just shut up.' Things like that."

"And I wake you up?"

"You have a few times."

"You never said anything about it."

"Am I supposed to? Should I wake you and tell you to shut up and go to sleep next time?"

"That's not a good idea."

"That's exactly what I thought. That's why I never said anything. It would have just pissed you off."

"You know me so well," he said, then plowed into his pile of waffles.

I cleaned my plate without protest, and hoped the rest of the day would go well. A good day, or at least a half-way decent day would soften the blow of the dreaded phone call to Mom and the bad news I knew would come out of it.


	11. Chapter 11

I have been accused-more than once-of being addicted to the needy. It's true. Just ask my ex-wives or a few of my ex-patients. I like being able to help people when they can't help themselves. Maybe it can be a bad thing, but not always. That's my addiction and I can't stop it, even when the needy don't realize how much help they really need.

"What is it?" I asked when I stepped into the apartment and found Greg pacing up and down like an angry caged tiger. It took all of half a second to realize this wasn't good news.

"My leg hurts," he said between clenched teeth. The grimace pulling on his face told me the pain in his leg wasn't just a notch or two above usual, it was downright torture. Beads of sweat trickled down his pale, drawn face.

"How long have you been hurting like this?" Worry clung to my words and carried across the room. Greg paused and shot me a look that was desperation incarnate. Every time I see it I hope I never see it again. Wishful thinking. I'd see it again alright, it was just a question of when and how bad it would the next time around.

The pacing resumed. "It's been building."

"Why the hell didn't you say anything? How long has this been building?"

"All damned day."

"What about your pills–"

"My pills can't do _a goddamned thing_!" Anger burned in his eyes, then flickered down into glowing embers. "Jimmy, we've been through this before. I just have to wait it out, like all the other times."

"For how long?" I thought about it more than once and knew he did too: the fear and dread that the horrific pain he was enduring wouldn't go away this time.

"As long as it fucking takes." When Greg is hurting this bad, he has to take his aggression out on someone. When the anger talked, it shouted and wouldn't stop until it was gone. I happened to be in the room so I was going to take the brunt of it whether I liked it or not. I didn't, I despised it, but that wasn't going to change anything tonight. He looked over again and I noticed the glassiness coated over his burning eyes, and I wondered just how many Vicodin he had taken over the day.

Whatever agenda I had for the evening was immediately dropped as I walked over and carefully brushed his cheek. He flinched away as if I had hit him and tried to push me back. "Jimmy, please, just leave me the hell alone."

"No, Greg–"

He pushed again and tried to swing the cane. "_Goddammit, go away_–" A spasm cut off his words; his legs buckled and he would have hit the floor if I hadn't been there to catch him. The cane slipped away and skittered to the front door. Sweat was no longer trickling, it was pouring. His face was beyond pale, no color at all. It scared me.

I half-carried, half-dragged him over to the couch. As carefully as I could, I lifted his legs onto the cushions and winced as he cried out in the pain that simple act brought. I hunted down some pillows and the heating pad, a replay of a few long nights before and a harbinger of future long nights ahead.

It always rips my heart out to see him like this. I can never get used to it. If I ever do I hope someone is around to put me out of my misery.

He lay there, tried to curl up in a fetal position but couldn't. All that accomplished was causing another bolt of pain to shoot up and the heating pad to fall off. He had to settle for lying on his back, turned slightly toward the cushions, his eyes screwed shut in hopes that this was all a dream. Of course Greg knew better than that but would still hope for it anyway. Wishing for the pain to leave was better than just sitting their and letting it consume him like a roaring blaze. An occasional moan and whimper escaped from his throat. I retrieved the cane, then pulled the table closer and sat down, put the heating pad back on the damaged leg and gently stroking his temple as if I could magically wish his agony to go away and never come back. To my surprise he didn't push my hand away and after a while he seemed to relax a tiny bit. Barely perceptible to the lay person, but I could see it and let a little bit of my anxiety settle back for the moment.

My moment of relief was very short-lived.

"My pills are in the kitchen," Greg muttered, his eyes still shut good and tight. Sweat had formed a tree shape down the front of his tee shirt and plastered his hair to his forehead. Red spots glowed against his cheeks.

"You said they weren't helping." My guts twisted in a knot, and then another. The very last thing either of us needed right now was for him to take a handful of those damned pills and overdose. "How many have you taken today?"

"Jimmy, just shut up and bring me the goddamn pills." He opened his eyes and the icy glare was like a slap in the face. At least his anger wasn't directed at me, not yet.

"Are you sure you haven't had too many already?" I asked carefully, even though the answer was crystal clear and didn't need to be spoken aloud. The day he didn't take _enough_ was the day we all needed to stand at attention and wonder what the hell was going on.

He spoke and his words all but drew blood. "_Bring me my fucking pills_. _Now_." Here comes the anger, aimed at me with both barrels. There may as well be a bullseye hanging around my neck.

"No." I held my ground even though I know it was a losing battle, not outnumbered but most certainly outgunned. I wasn't going to jump at his every command even it meant getting a few battle scars.

"You have five seconds to bring me my pills or I'm going to knock your ass into next week, throw you out of here, and get my fucking pills anyway."

He meant every single word of it. I knew and he knew it. It never ceased to amaze me what a monster his pain could turn him into; almost like Jekyll and Hyde. If he wasn't pretty much incapacitated my ass would have already been kicked, bruised and battered. I got him his pills. He dry-swallowed two and wrapped himself in the cloak of his addiction, making a show of it, a matinee for the audience of me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and braced myself for what was looking to be the longest night of my life.


	12. Chapter 12

"There was a time I thought I would just get used to it. Just live with the pain. I didn't have a choice anymore, right? I had to learn to live with it." Greg told me quietly as he turned back around to face me. Dark circles under his eyes made him look twenty years older.

"Did you really believe you could?" I asked.

"No, but I wanted to believe I could be better than the pain. I really did. Looking back it's real to easy to see what an idiot I was. Like a naive dimbulb schoolgirl who believes in fairies and princesses and gold at the end of the rainbow. Any second now a knight on a big white horse is going to come crashing through the door and take all my problems away. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"If you say so," I said, wondering if he was telling the truth or just making something up so he would have a reason to talk my ears off.

He was still sprawled on the couch and I was still sitting on the table. The pills had kicked in after an eternity and a half and his agony had loosened its grip. His eyes were distant and vacant, and he kept glancing around the room like he didn't recognize the place. It sent chills down my back.

"You're not an idiot," I said, taking his hand. His fingertips were cold. I stroked his palm and I saw a minute flash of contentment in his haggard features and the chills backed off a little.

"This kind of thing happens to other guy, right? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?"

"Not always."

"I hate karma."

"So do I and so did my brother."

"Why did I have to be the other guy this time?"

"I can't answer that," I said.

"I'm not asking you to," he grumbled. "Things like this aren't supposed to happen someone like me. I'm a _doctor_, for fuck's sake. How the hell am I supposed to help a patient if all I can think about is my goddam gimp leg? I should know about this stuff, right? Isn't that why I spent a good chunk of my life in school? Why couldn't I see what the hell was wrong with my own fucking leg?"

"Doctor's aren't perfect, Greg."

"Especially crippled ones."

"You hardly asked to be crippled."

"Goddamn right I didn't. The only symptom was pain. How was I supposed to know? Why didn't I know?"

"You couldn't. That pain could have been lots of things. Everyone makes mistakes, Greg, even you."

"Just take a pill every now and then and the pain would go away. Little did I know..." He trailed off and gave a small chuckle somewhere between desperate and delirious. Another spasm made his leg jerk, the heating pad tumbling to the floor. "Pills, pills and more pills. They can make the pain go away but they can't make it disappear. Too bad, I really like these pills."

I picked the heating pad back up and gently put it back on his leg. "You're going to be fine. Like you said, we just have wait this out." My less-than-stellar words of comfort would probably just go over his head, but I didn't care. At least I was able to voice something that reached his ears before the agony and Vicodin began to yell at me again.

"_We_? Feeling my pain now, Jimmy? Should we get matching canes now?" he spat out, venom bristling on his voice. "Be miserable in your own way, Jimmy. This is _my_ pain and you can't have it. It's mine, do you hear me? _Mine_."

_It's the pain talking, making him a monster, just remember that, just remember that..._

"I got used to the loneliness. It was either get used to it or go insane," he said, a bit calmer, his words starting to flow in a rambling stream-of-consciousness. "Lone Wolf House. Never had much use for people, even before the surgery. People aren't to be trusted. Now I know why. You do too, Jimmy. If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Remember that. People who think their humanity make them so fucking _special_. Look at what all that wonderful human kindness did for _me_. Look at what the woman I loved and those brilliant medical minds did to _me_. Maybe someday I'll find why that bitch karma led me down this thorny primrose path. Won't that be funny..."

He passed out then and I let his grip slide out of my hand. I checked his pulse–strong and steady, as was his breathing. Nothing else I could do for him right then except hope his pills were helping and he was getting some relief in his unconscious state. Sneakers still on his feet. I left them there. He was hurting enough, and even the most careful of movements would send up another flare. The sneakers were fine. I doubt this was the first time he had to sleep in them in his own apartment.

I stayed with him for a while, just making sure he was okay, something he had done for me more than once. Aside from the occasional twitch and groan, he didn't move. Greg was out cold. I was grateful for that and tried to push my guilt back down by telling myself at least he isn't suffering at the moment. The attempt was only mildly successful. Better than a complete failure, I suppose.

I didn't need another failure in my life right now. No matter what anyone else says I know I failed my brother and the last thing in the world I was going to do was fail Greg.


	13. Chapter 13

There wasn't any place to go so I stayed put on the table, making sure the heating pad was in place since it seemed to help unravel the knots in his leg, and watching him sleep. He was deep in the well of unconsciousness, his body as limp as a rag doll. Pain, pills and booze don't mix very well. I wondered how many of those pills he had taken today. Too many, I was pretty sure of that.

There's no one to blame. I knew what I was getting into the minute I moved in with him. I got myself into this because I thought he needed someone to look after him. And I was right. I was going to stay by his side and help him through this even if it killed me. So far I've been able to take anything he's thrown at me. After a dozen years I've developed a thick skin to protect myself against his acid tongue. Now we'll see just thick it really is, and how much I'm ready, willing and able to take. It's almost disturbing to think about. Maybe Greg was right, maybe I am just as fucked up as he is.

Whatever the case, I have to batten down the hatches and herd my feelings, ego, and pride into the basement. The sky was turning black. The wind was picking up. The storm was coming.

Bring it on.

* * *

"_Jimmy?_" 

I was in the kitchen stealing some of his scotch when his voice drifted in. Back in the living room, I found him trying to sit up and grunting at the tremendous effort it took. He had been out for three hours and was still beyond exhausted.

"Greg, you feeling any better?" I cupped his chin and tilted his head up. Glazed blue eyes took way too much time to focus.

"Jimmy?" Between the pain and grogginess he might as well have been drunk. I like him better drunk. Alcohol just makes him cranky. It doesn't make him vicious like the pain does.

"You okay? You should to go to bed–"

"Stacy already ripped my heart out so she decided to take my fucking leg too..."

That sudden out-of-nowhere quip threw me off for a second. "She was just trying to help."

"_Help?_ Does this look like help to you?" He tried to stand up only to have both legs buckle, nearly pitching him face first into the table. His teeth would have scattered all over the place if I hadn't pushed him back. I stayed close in case he tried it again. "If this is Stacy's idea of _help_ I'd hate to see what she would have done if she had been really mad at me."

"Stacy loved you, Greg. You know that."

"Yeah, she did." His face collapsed into despair. "Lot of good that did me."

"You didn't know what was happening, and neither did Stacy." I said, keeping my voice calm, hoping it would bring him down a notch or ten.

No dice. "_Fuck you, Jimmy_." That voice could have frozen the entire East coast. "Sure, everyone had the best fucking intentions, but guess who gets pay for it? Guess who gets to go to bed every night in agony and wake up every morning in agony? Huh? Just take one wild goddamn guess. So fuck Stacy, fuck Cuddy, fuck you, and fuck everyone else with their _good intentions_!"

I closed my eyes and took a breath, willing every ounce of self-control to keep from slapping him. "I'm sorry about your leg, Greg," I said with a strange serenity that surprised us both, "and I'm sorry about Stacy. I'm sorry you lost the gamble with the surgery, but that doesn't give you the right to take it out on me or anyone else."

"It wasn't my gamble, it was hers!"

"She couldn't have known, Greg."

"She gambled with my leg and my life and _I lost_!"

"I have to agree, you lost. That was a long time ago. Stacy's gone, you're still here, you've come this far, now can you take some of your advice and let it go?"

From the sudden slack-jawed bewilderment that swept over Greg I thought I had slapped him and didn't realize it. Did I lash out in a blind rage? No, that wasn't it. Something more unexpected but stung just the same–Greg was used to pushing people's buttons, but could never be ready for when someone decided to push back, no matter how much he deserved it. I had caught him completely unprepared and he didn't like it one bit.

"_You son-of-a-bitch_!" He let a fist fly, the one I couldn't bring myself to throw. He missed me by a mile, and I easily caught it before he regained his balance and tried again. Even in his tortured, drug-soaked, bone-tired blitz, I have to admit he managed to put up a hell of a fight. "Do you even know what pain is? Do you, Jimmy? _Do you?_" he yelled over and over and over during his struggle. A useless struggle, not that being outnumbered or outgunned ever stopped him before. His pain, physical and emotional, had reduced him into a snarling, combative wreck and it was damned frightening.

"Damn it, let go!" he growled. "Let go!"

"No." I held on like a iron manacle. He didn't have a chance.

"Jimmy, goddamn it, let me go!"

"Fight it all you want, Greg, I'm not letting you go."

Finally, the reserves were used up, his tanks were empty, and he had to give up. Gregory House was beaten, surrendered, and I'd bet everything I owned that hurt him as much as his leg. No more fight left to hold him up so he collapsed into a shaking heap, his head coming to a rest on my shoulder. Soon the warm tears were soaking through my shirt. The time was now, the time to be his crutch to lean on, his shoulder to cry on, his shelter from the storm. Everything I was supposed to be. It was my turn and I was ready.

"No, I don't know what pain is," I said softly, pulling him into an embrace I could only hope he found warm and safe, our foreheads touching. The quiet gasps of his defeated weeping were unbearable. I didn't give in, I held my ground. I had to. He was teetering on the edge and I was the only thing keeping him from tumbling into an endless black oblivion. "We've been through this before, and we're going to get through it again. You hear me, Greg? We're going to get through it."


	14. Chapter 14

There's a saying that _want_ and _need_ are two different things, and that people get them confused. Sounds simple, right? Nope, it's not quite that easy. Look up _want_ in the dictionary and you will see the word _need_ in the definition. Look up the word _need_ and you will see _want_ in the definition. I say they are too synonymous to be two completely different things, and for some people the line is too blurred , thus making the difference between them is beside the point. Take my best friend, for instance. I believe that at this point in his life he _needs_ someone here to look after him. Whether he will admit that he _wants_ it or not isn't relevant. He needs someone and I'm more than willing to take the job. The pay sucks but the benefits make up for it. Just keep in mind I'm not about to say that to his face. The last thing I _need_ right now is to piss him off more than he already is. I don't _need_ or _want_ a black eye from an untimely fit of anger.

I'd like to think that somewhere deep down in his agony, he's grateful for me being here. His vicious side doesn't like it, but then again, that side of him doesn't like _anything_. I'm grateful that his vicious side was half-asleep along with the rest of him. Hopefully he wouldn't rear his ugly head again anytime soon. Both of us have enough to deal with, thank you very much.

Though he said his leg was feeling a little better, it still hurt too much to move so we made ourselves as comfortable as possible on the sofa. A far cry from the soft bed in the master suite, but it's not like either of us chose to be out here on a guided tour through our own personal versions of hell. Greg, still in his clothes and shoes still on his feet, was a crumpled heap in my arms, half-dozing. I lay there and held him without a word. No mere words could make his leg hurt any less, and he wouldn't listen to me anyway. I lightly stroked his cheek, and he enjoyed that, strange as it sounds. When I made the mistake of stopping, he snapped at me to keep going. So I did, his four-day old beard like sandpaper under my fingertips.

The minute hand on the clock crawled around the face. It was after midnight. Both of us should be lost in dreamland right now, getting ready for another day of helping the sick. Yeah right. Who knows when I would be able to get some sleep. Maybe by this time tomorrow night, or the a couple days from now for that matter, if I was lucky. Greg may be out, but he sure as hell wasn't getting any rest. If I knew how he managed to get through all the other times his leg was killing him and he was all alone, I'd bottle it and sell it. Give the world a bit of relief from its compiled masses of anguish.

After all the bullshit that life has thrown at him, he can get up every morning and say he's still a brilliant doctor and nobody can honestly say that isn't the truth. Of course, like everything else in life, there's a catch. Brilliant doctors are human and humans have weaknesses and faults.

"Nnngghh...Jimmy?" he murmured thickly, eyes swimming in a haze. The poor guy looked like he'd been dragged under a bus, and probably felt like it too.

"Hey, Greg," I replied quietly. "You feeling any better?" I knew he was still in agony, but better to be polite. Maybe it would help keep his vicious side at bay.

"No," he scowled, and began to grope blindly for the back of the sofa and pull himself up. "I can't stand this sofa anymore. I need...I need to get to the bed."

Good idea. More room to stretch out and maybe get a little more relief. I held him up and we slowly but surely made our way there. I helped him out of his clothes and shoes; not an easy task considering every little movement caused a fresh round of pain. Thankfully he didn't yell at me, just gritted his teeth and stared past me in a strange detached way. Down to his boxers; the night was warm, no worries there. I carefully helped Greg into the bed, then lightly drew a sheet over him. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of immense relief. The hard part was over. His eyes opened again and didn't bother to focus on me.

"Where are...where are my pills?" he muttered.

"On the lamp table."

"Get them."

"You've already had too many."

"_Get me my fucking pills_."

If I didn't get them, he'd drag himself back out there, no matter what the damage would be. I brought him those damned pills, then cleaned up and joined him in the bed. He was riding another Vicodin wave, eyes wide open and looking through the wall. I frowned and switched off the lamp. Just as I got comfortable I felt his hand touch mine. It was a surprise.

"You have the patience of a saint. Did I ever tell you that?" Greg said to the dark room. He was speaking coherently again. The pills must finally be sweeping some of his pain under the rug.

"Yes, you have," I reminded him. "Several times."

"It's true, you know."

"If you say so."

"I _know_ so." He paused for few minutes, then said in a soft voice, "I yelled at you a lot tonight. Said some really nasty things."

Even though I couldn't see him, I got the feeling that his eyes were closed not out of tiredness, but out of some weird regret for his behavior towards me.

"It's okay, Greg."

"No, it's not okay. It's not okay. I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with, but don't think that means I enjoy hurting the one person who can tolerate a son-of-a-bitch like me."

"Yes, you did say some nasty things. You've done it before and you'll do it again. I'll get over it."

"Are you now?"

"Yes. You don't have to beat yourself up about it. It's over and done with. Now get some sleep."

"One of these days I'm going to say something you won't get over. Then where will I be?"

He brought my hand back up to his cheek. I kept stroking it even after he fell asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

The night crawled along, with Greg and I taking turns waking each other up then falling back into a fitful slumber. The blankets got twisted and tangled, once around my ankle so tightly that the circulation was cut off. My toes tingled as I unwrapped it while cursing under my breath. A twelve hour day ahead of me with about three whole hours of sleep to fuel it. I've done it before, not that I recommend doing that on a regular basis. I'll be surprised if Greg can drag himself to the kitchen tomorrow, let alone the hospital. Wait...I knew better. He was going to work, no question about that, I just hoped I would be there if he fell. Nobody else would catch him.

The alarm screeched, followed by a grunt, a snap, and a bone-jarring crash. I jerked awake with the alarm, then nearly fell out of the bed when the crash jolted the few nerves I had left. Greg was hanging over his side of the bed, holding his head as if a migraine had decided to join his leg in its sick little dance. I shuffled over to see what the problem really was–the ear-splitting blare of the morning wake-up call had snapped the last tenuous twig of Greg's patience, thus he had ripped the alarm clock out of the wall and smashed it on the floor. Pieces of it were scattered all over the room, a few making it as far as the hall.

"I guess hitting the 'off' button would have been too easy," I muttered testily while surveying the ruins of the clock. "I suppose it would be silly of me to ask if that was really necessary."

He didn't say anything, just snatched his pills off the nightstand with a brooding scowl.

"That's what I thought," I said with a sigh. "Is your leg feeling any better?"

No answer.

"Going to the hospital today?"

Still no words as he glared at me while dry-swallowing two more Vicodin.

"Greg, is your leg feeling any better? Are you going to work today?" I already knew the answers, I just wanted to hear him say them out loud. I stood quietly and waited with the infinite restraint he never had.

"No," he replied simply and quietly, as if daring me to argue with him about it. I had a strange feeling that murdering the clock didn't get it all out of his system and he was just looking for any kind of excuse to pick a fight.

I wasn't going to let him, especially over something that neither of us could control. He was hurting, I knew, but he was going to have to take his frustrations out some other way. Someday he'll get angry over something he had every right to get angry about and not know what to do with himself. "I'll clean this up," I said calmly, as if sweeping up the remains of murdered alarms clocks was a mundane, everyday thing. "Go get a shower and I'll make us some breakfast."

He watched me walk out of the bedroom and return with the broom and dustpan like he was still waiting for me to read him the riot act. I swept up the mess and ignored him. He waited until I had finished, then slowly and painfully began to lift himself out of bed. I reached for his arm to help, but he less-than-gently shoved me away, pulled himself up and limped off to the bathroom. A few minutes later I heard the shower splash on. The water would be scalding, it helps loosen up the leg. At least I hope it does.

A nice breakfast was waiting for Greg when he finally stumbled to the table with flushed cheeks and glazed eyes. The combination of the drugs and hot shower had him dazed. He was eventually able to focus on the food on front of him: French toast and a glass of milk. I saw a minute smile tug at his mouth as he reached for the syrup.

"I'll drive you to the hospital today, Greg." I wasn't giving him a choice. Either I drove him or I'd leave him here with a few knives sticking out of the tires of his motorcycle. I chewed on my own French toast and waited for my friend's response.

"Fine," he said, as if he could care less and probably didn't. I could have said we were jogging to work from that day forward and he would have given the same reply. "I don't have any cash, so if you need some fucking gas money, you'll have to wait."

"The tank is full," I said truthfully. Thankfully the hospital wasn't all that far away or else I'd be selling plasma for gas money.

"Okay. That's settled," he replied absently and began to eat.

I was more than happy to see Greg had any kind of appetite. The hot shower must have knocked the pain down a peg. He glanced up and caught me staring.

"Just what the hell are you looking at, Jimmy?" He was more than a little annoyed, but he would have to just get over it.

"I'm looking at you enjoying the nice breakfast I made."

His eyes narrowed. "French toast...the breakfast of champions." Sarcasm dripped like the syrup. Trying to get me rattled. It wasn't working.

"And the best doctors in New Jersey," I replied in a ridiculously cheery voice. "I can make it tomorrow morning if you want."

"Please do," he said dryly, scarfing down the last piece. I didn't know if he was serious or not. He was going to eat the damn French toast tomorrow, regardless.

I took his plate and glass and rinsed them off. I turned back around and he was watching me intently.

"Still addicted to the needy, aren't you, Jimmy?"

"What?" I puzzled.

"No cure for that, but you wouldn't take it even if there was one–"

"Please, Greg, just shut up–"

"Can't put the muscle back in my leg. It will never heal. It will always hurt. How lucky is that?"

I grabbed my keys off the table, trying to avoid those blue eyes that see through everything. "Let's go. We're already late."


	16. Chapter 16

There was a message waiting for me on my voice mail from my mother. She and Dad were going up to Vancouver to visit her sister. Getting away for a while so they can sort out their thoughts and feelings and everything else that went grieving for a lost child. She didn't expect to be back until the end of the month at the earliest.

The one time I really need to talk to her and she's not around. That's so fucking perfect, so goddamned sublime. Someone Up There is messing around with cosmic roulette wheel of my life again. Karma was going to strike again and this time it was going to hit me where it hurt. Of course, I didn't know that yet. Karma isn't nice to enough to give fair warning. I just knew I was tired and pissed off at everything.

I swallowed my annoyance and buried myself in work. A delightful sixty-year-old librarian was responding well to treatment for colorectal cancer. She gushed about all the new programs she was putting together for children and teenagers at the library in hopes of tearing them away from video games for an hour or two. My bad mood lifted during the time she was with me. Maybe there is hope for humanity yet.

Around three o'clock Greg limped into my office and wanted to know if I was ready to leave. I wasn't, not by a long shot, and told him I could call a cab to take him home. He just grunted, which I took as a _no thanks_, and made himself comfortable on the couch in my office until I was ready to call it day at six-thirty.

The drive home was quite and uneventful; impossible to tell if he wasn't talking simply because it was one of those rare occasions where he didn't feel the need to talk a mile a minute, or if he was angry with me for one reason or another. When asked about his leg, he mumbled that it still hurt and didn't say another thing. He had spoken exactly three words in the last four hours. His silence didn't really bother me, it was the reason behind it: The anger that someone else chose his fate. It was going to build and build until it blew like Mount St. Helens, and this time the only victim won't be an innocent alarm clock. The only thing I could do was brace myself and hope like hell his leg was feeling better before the lava began to flow.

There hadn't been any time to go the store, so the pickings for dinner were pretty slim. Two dusty but usable cans of chicken noodle soup were scavenged from the back of the cupboard. Not exactly fine dining, but it was food. Greg didn't complain and for that I was eternally grateful. We slurped up the soup in silence until he asked me, with surprising politeness, to get him another bowl. Of course I got it for him. Now the interesting part would be watching how long the politeness would last, how long his volcanic anger would remain dormant.

The soup was eaten and the television clicked on just in time for one those godawful monster truck shows. I groaned in despair, which Greg found more than amusing. What he saw about so damned entertaining in watching rednecks with too much testosterone flattening junk cars in giant extensions of their manhood I'll never know. That damnable smirk of his tugged at his mouth while he stretched out and rested his head in my lap.

"You want a pillow?" I asked., watching the ghostly images from the television flicker across his pupils.

"I'm fine," he murmured in reply, and met my eyes for a moment before turning back to the TV.

"How about the heating pad?"

"What about the heating pad?"

"You want it? I'll get it for you."

"I'm fine, Jimmy." His words came out thick and caustic. I got the hint. I backed off and watched the monster trucks. Later, I stroked his cheek and he rewarded me with another tiny smile.

The pain in his leg began to ebb a bit over the next few days. He still hurt, no question, but thankfully it wasn't as terrible as before, and Greg's mood reflected that with a noticeable improvement. The Vicodin usage eased up. We were both sleeping better, Greg curling his limbs around me like a vine–his way of saying sorry. I didn't mind. The fact that he felt some remorse over his less-than-praiseworthy demeanor was all the apology I needed for the time being. We settled back into our routine. Watching _The L Word_, monster truck shows, and _The New Yankee Workshop_. Greg is convinced that Norm Abram is going to slice off a few fingers on camera one of these days. I doubted that would happen seeing as it was a woodworking show that emphasized safety, not some _Faces of Death_ retrospective and told him so. He just snorted and watched his shows, waiting patiently for the blood and guts.

Things were on an even keel again. Things were going well. The boat would rock again, but I believed I could handle it. Mom would be home in about ten days and hopefully she could fill in a few things for me about David.

Nothing good lasts forever. I forgot that for a second. Ah, well.

Greg was feeling well enough to ride the motorcycle to work, so we had driven to the hospital separately. Greg parked the bike out front, but no more free spaces out there so I had to go into the garage. After claiming a space on the second level I began to make my way down the dingy stairs. The sun was out. I could hear chirps and tweets of birds nesting in the various gaps of the garage ceiling. All in all, a nice late summer day. I hummed to myself while mentally going through my to-do list.

From up above I hear a woman's voice shout "Hey!" followed by a shriek and heavy thudding footsteps running towards me. As I turn towards the sound, a shadow descends and rams into me at full-force. The last thing I remember is hearing my left arm break after tumbling down the stairs.


	17. Chapter 17

Bright lights kept shining in my eyes, making my head hurt worse than it already did. Actually I hurt all over; one giant mass of throbbing pain. Sounds like the wheels of a shopping cart. I was on my back, being pushed into more bright lights. Voices swirled all around like a dust devil. At first I was scared–what did those people want?– then it dawned on me that I _knew_ those voices. Chattering above me and hands pulling and tugging at my clothes and forcing my eyes open. Go away. _Jimmy? Jimmy, can you hear me?_ Hey, that's my name. That particular voice sounds frantic and worried. Who does that voice belong to? I know his name...it's on the tip of my tongue...What the hell happened? All I wanted was a decent parking space. _Okay, Jimmy, this is gonna hurt_. Uh-oh, that can't be good. There was a _crack_ like an eggshell, then a white-hot coil of pain encircled my arm. I screamed loud enough to be heard in the next state and the lights went out. Good. They were giving me a headache.

I was in bed, surrounded by a soupy grey fog. Ow...a splitting headache, especially over my left eye. One tight knot. Where are the painkillers? I reached for the nightstand. _Clunk_. My left arm hit a metal railing. It was in a cast up to the elbow. Great, just great. Now is the perfect time to be left-handed. I can't win for losing anymore. I was in a hospital bed with a painful broken arm and a pounding skull. The fog lowered and began to make the room spin.

"Hello?" My voice was nothing but a dried-out wheeze. Trying to focus on something only made the room spin faster.

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," a voice spoke to me. A male voice. The voice from before, the one that told me it was gonna hurt. Not so worried and frantic now. Apparently my broken arm wasn't terminal.

"Greg?" I croaked.

"Right here." A rough, calloused palm skimmed across my cheek. I'd felt that a million times before and it was always soothing. "That was a nasty tumble you took. You had us all worried."

"Tumble..._what_? What?" I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. All I knew was that my head was going to cave in unless I got some heavy-duty drugs in my system, pronto. "I need some aspirin..." I mumbled, clutching my head and squeezing my eyes shut against the invading light.

I slurped some unidentified pills from his palm that magically appeared and washed them down with some room-temperature water. Fine with me. At least I didn't choke the damn things.

"The best care for the best doctors," he said with a strangely satisfied grin.

"What happened?" I asked, falling back onto the less-than-comfortable bed.

"I'll tell you later."

"Why not now?"

"Those pills are going to knock you out in about three minutes," Greg said coolly, like drugging me was part of his daily routine. "Take a nice nap and I'll tell you everything in the morning."

He was right about those pills. The last thought that floated through my mind before the fog descended again was _I hope he doesn't blame this on me._

I woke up around midnight and Greg was still in the room, reading some tabloid trash magazine. He wanted to give me some more of those knock-out pills. I said _hell no_. We were going to have a little discussion about how I came to be in the hospital and we were going to have it _now_. My head was still throbbing, but not nearly as bad. The pain in my arm was threatening to overtake my headache. _Fine_, he sighed, then disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a soft drink and over-the-counter migraine medicine.

"What do you remember?" Greg asked as he poured the drink.

"Getting out of the car," I answered, watching as he peeled the safety seal off the pill bottle.

"Anything else?" He pulled out the cotton and dumped four pills on the tray.

I gobbled them up before answering. Using my right hand was strange beyond words, but my left was all but useless since the cast went all way up to my fingers, covering my palm. Just moving the fingers was a chore. "Someone setting the bones in my arm."

"That was me, with Foreman holding you down. We happened to hear all the commotion when they were bringing you in," he said. "You scream like a little girl."

"I'll remember that the next time your leg hurts," I snapped after a swallow of the soda. The bubbles tickled my nose and made me cough.

His eyes turned flat and icy, along with his tone. "My spirit is broken, not my leg." It was like he was telling a student a simple fact everyone should know by now.

"So what happened?" I turned the conversation back to my little tumble and he softened a bit.

"A scrub nurse got her purse snatched up in the garage. The brazen little bastard was in such a hurry to get down the stairs that he didn't see you. You were knocked down those hard concrete steps, broke your arm clean through in two places, and you have a lovely purple bump on your head. Thankfully that thick skull of yours came in handy. No fractures up there. Just wait until you see that bump, though. It's _huge_."

I raised my hand up and gingerly felt along my hairline until the golf-ball size lump was under my fingertips.

"You're going to look like one gigantic walking bruise tomorrow."

"Lucky me," I grumbled. I was getting tired of being the world's punching bag.

"You have amazing timing, Jimmy."

"I noticed. Did they catch the guy?"

"Sort of."

"Either they did or they didn't. Which is it?"

"Mr. Purse Snatcher was a one-man crime wave," Greg began. "He'd been snatching purses and using stolen checks all over the state. The police were on hand when he tried to snatch another purse and he led them on a twenty mile chase. It ended when he flipped the car and died. They found the nurse's purse. He had carefully kept track of all the checks he used in the check registers. In the end they found seven different checkbooks, all stolen of course."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Nope. I taped the news in case you wanted to see it."

"Go ahead and tape over it. I don't wanna see that." My stomach did a few back flips and turned sour. "What I really want to do is to go home."

"You're staying here overnight. Cuddy's orders."

"It's after midnight," I pleaded shamelessly even though there was no way in hell I was walking out that door before sunrise. "Let's just go."

"Cuddy will kill both of us. You're staying put."

"Since when do you care about Cuddy's orders? Please, where are my clothes...?"

"Since you were brought in here bruised, bloodied and half-conscious," Greg spat, his now-harsh voice reverberated down to the marrow of my broken bones. "You either take it easy for a few more hours or I'm getting the restraining straps."

"You're serious," I gulped.

"When it comes to what's mine–always."

I settled back into the pillows with a defeated sigh. "Okay, okay. I should tell everyone you agreed with Cuddy for a change. No one will ever let you forget it."

"That's fine with me," he replied. "I'll never let you forget how much it scared me when I saw your ulna poking through your skin. I guess that makes us even."


	18. Chapter 18

I wasn't really in the mood for company, but I didn't have the heart or the energy to turn away the fellow doctors who had stopped by to wish me well. Cuddy told me, more like _ordered_ me, to take off for as long as necessary. Greg had nagged her to within an inch of her life to let him stay at home and "watch over me" for a few days, just in case. I shouldn't be left alone, I might have dizzy or fainting spells, blah blah blah. She stared at the lovely eggplant purple bump on my head more out of professional curiosity than rudeness and agreed before being called away to put out a few fires. To tell the truth I think she let him have a few days off so he would shut up before she snapped and strangled him.

By the time I got things squared away in oncology, making sure everything would run smoothly in my absence, my head felt like a jack hammer was trying to split it open and my arm had a dozen rusty spikes driven into it. Then Cameron, Foreman and Chase filed in, beaming like spotlights and eager to sign my cast. All the usual condolences spilled out like some sentimental waterfall for those too polite to say "Better you than me." It could have just as easily happened to them, but at the time I was too busy trying to will the migraine away to think about it. So I had to lay there and be subjected to: "I'm sorry this happened", "Hey, it could have been worse", "How are you feeling?", "Does the cast itch yet?" Through all the mindless blather and throbbing pain I tried my best to smile and pay attention.

"Did House tell you what happened to the guy who knocked you down the stairs?" Cameron asked while scribbling away on the cast. I swear if I found some cheesy little heart on there, I just might start to cry.

"Yeah, ran from the police and died. Stupid bastard," I replied rather blithely. Cameron frowned at my admittedly cold answer. Given my mood, she's lucky I decided at the last possible second to refrain from saying what was really on my mind. She would have be justified in washing my mouth out with steel wool.

Where the hell was Greg? How long does it take to bring the damn car around?

"All that for some checks," Chase said with a sense of wonderment, as if no human being could ever be that desperate for some quick money.

"I hope it was worth it," Foreman muttered, and moved in to autograph the plaster around my arm. "No, it wasn't worth it. Forget I said anything."

"If you insist," I mumbled. Foreman passed the pen to Chase, who began to scrawl a novel on the remaining white space.

"House said you don't remember falling down the stairs," the Australian said while taking a moment to admire his handiwork, then looked at me for a reaction.

I played it cool since my searing migraine didn't allow for much else. The pills were evidently taking the long way to my bloodstream. "House talks too much. And it's true, the only things I remember are getting out of my car and screaming like a banshee when my arm was set."

Foreman smirked. "My ears are still ringing from that."

"My head is about to explode. My arm still hurts. I'll trade you."

"Okay boys and girls, back to work," Greg interrupted before Foreman could respond. My friend was followed by a nurse pushing a wheelchair. "Our wonder-oncologist here needs go home for some peace and quiet and a little TLC."

Groaning at the sight of the wheelchair, I said, "I can walk just fine. I don't need that."

"I don't need to watch _The L Word_," Greg said with a steely gaze. "Wheelchair or restraining straps. The choice is yours."

Actually, I didn't have a choice, so with an overdone sigh I heaved my aching carcass off the bed and into the chair. It turns out I did need the detestable wheelchair. The room tilted at odd angles, voices sounded soft and far away, and I choked down the bile rising in the my throat. I closed my eyes and hoped like hell the goddamn migraine medicine would work sometime today.

"Are you okay, Dr. Wilson?" I heard Cameron say from somewhere.

"No. Please, just get me home," I mumbled in a pathetically whiny voice. "Greg, please, this migraine is about to kill me..."

"Here." My friend pulled a prescription bottle out of a bag. "A little present from the pharmacy."

"I..I can't," I said, feeling my face turn green at the thought of trying to swallow something, even a something that could bring relief. "Not right now. Please, just get me _home_."

"Chase, help me get him into the car," Greg instructed curtly. "Jimmy, if you're not feeling better by tomorrow morning, you're coming back here. Is that clear?"

I couldn't answer, just sat there slumped in the wheelchair covering my eyes since even the dimmest light felt like a supernova to my eyes. Much to my immense consolation, the chair began to move. I would have kissed the nurse, but decided Greg wouldn't like that. A conversation between Greg and Chase flittered around my head like fall leaves spiraling from a tree. They were talking about a patient, then about me. Talking about me like I wasn't there. Let them. As long it got me to a nice dark room with no noise, they swap all the juicy little tidbits they wanted. I could get revenge later. Right now all I wanted was to be knocked unconscious.

I crawled into the backseat and heard Greg grunt as he climbed behind the steering wheel. My last rational thought before being woke up in front of the apartment was _If you crash this car, you better hope both of us die_.

I was in a really bad mood, please understand that. Those thoughts took over and I couldn't stop them. The migraine brought out my own personal Mr. Hyde. I prayed that a few more painkillers and a lot of rest would make him go away.


	19. Chapter 19

_A/N: Yes, I know poor Jimmy has been suffering a hell of a lot lately. Unfortunately he's going to be suffering a little bit more. Just bear with me and I promise he will have a nice, happy day in the near future. _

* * *

Except for when Greg slammed on the brakes and screamed out the window "_Would it kill you to use your fucking turn signal, jackass_?", the ride home went as well as could be expected. The roads were thankfully pot-hole free for a change. Either that or I was just too out of it to notice.

I can now safely say that I know exactly what people mean when they talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Trust me, the rest of you are better off not knowing. This wasn't like shingles. I'd probably never get shingles again. No worries there. I'd always have to look over my shoulder and make sure there isn't some purse-snatcher hiding in the garage. I'm not too keen on that idea. I shouldn't have to look over my shoulder.

The blazing sun, the migraine, the broken arm, the nausea. It was all threatening to come to a boiling point, but miracle of miracles, the medication began to do its job. By the time we pulled up to the curb in front of the apartment my skull felt like it was being slammed with a crowbar instead of a sledgehammer.

Inside was dark and cool, and my pounding head and aching arm were grateful. I tripped my way to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Greg was kind enough to pull down the shades. My migraine bitched about what little light was peaking through the shades, and the light coming from my back-up alarm clock. That was as good as was going to get at ten-thirty in the morning, so quit your bitching and please shut the fuck up for a while. At least my arm knew when to keep quiet.

"Put your legs up," Greg said in a oddly warped voice that came from all directions. It sounded like he was speaking into a tin can. Everything was warped: the room, the light, his voice. Just the migraine, I'll be okay. Maybe.

My legs were dangling over the side of the bed. I wore myself out dragging them up one at a time. Greg carefully undid the laces of my shoes and pulled them off. No snarky comments. Not because he had run out–like that will ever happen–I suppose seeing the one person he honestly cares about in full-blown misery kind of sucks all the fun out of it, especially when that person is the intended target of the said snarkiness.

He unbuttoned my shirt to give me a little more breathing room. "How's the head?" he asked quietly in the tin can voice.

"Still hurts," I croaked.

"I have a nice member of the Triptan class of migraine medication here if you're interested, instead of that over-the-counter crap."

"Sure." By then I was ready to let a voodoo priest chant over me and have leeches suck some blood if it meant getting some relief.

"Hold on a sec." Greg limped out of the room and came back a minute later with glass of water and a prescription bottle. "These should do the trick." He handed me the glass and tipped a pill into my hand. I choked it down and hoped like hell it would stay there.

He took the glass and pills back and set them on the nightstand. "Just in case. You need anything else?"

"Some quiet." I curled up and pulled the blanket over me, covering my eyes.

"I'm going to leave the door open a little. Holler if you need anything." The bed rose as he got up and I heard the faint tap of the cane on the floor.

I was in the dusky room, trying to think of a blank wall, trying to relax, waiting for the pain to dry up. _Please let the medicine, please let it work, please, please_...those thoughts ran circles in my head. I pushed them away but they came back. I pushed them out again and locked the door. They tried to break back in. The lock held. The migraine slowly but surely dried up and blew away in the breeze. I fell asleep.

A warmth surrounded me. It was pleasant, enjoyable. For some reason I felt safe in all this. I was safe and I belonged right here. I don't want to leave. Nothing could ever make me leave.

The migraine had faded into a dull ache. Some sunlight was still shining through the shades. I could look at it without wanting to die. My arm hurt, but it was livable.

Something else was there. It was life, a heartbeat. I could feel it against my back. A steady, rhythmic heartbeat. I wasn't alone in the bedroom anymore.

Greg was pressed up against me, fast asleep. The great insomniac down for the count before sunset, now that's funny. Vague scenes rewound and played in my mind: falling down the stairs, waking up in the hospital, Greg there with me at midnight. He probably hadn't slept in at least 36 hours, if not longer. Even he has to crash every now and then.

He had been worried and admitted it. He still was. That's why he was in the bed instead of on the sofa. Keeping an eye on me. He wouldn't do that for anyone else.

I kept his warmth around me and drifted off again.


	20. Chapter 20

"You look like hell," Greg told me while gently brushing some hair out of my eyes.

"Thanks," I muttered and tried to burrow back under the blanket. Greg pulled me back out.

He had woken up a while back and decided that I needed to be awake with him. He was sitting at the edge of the bed, making the obligatory check-up on my battered and bruised body. My head still ached and my arm itched. I knew it could be much worse and didn't say anything; not being in the mood for a snarky "I told you so". My tired brown eyes locked on to his. Those blue eyes were alert and shining. I envied that for a second, then remembered I had every right to be pained and hurting. Broken bones aren't exactly a cause for celebration, especially when those bones are mine.

"My Jimmy is feeling better. I'm glad to see that."

"At least I don't have to be banished to the spare bedroom this time."

"How very true. See, getting your arm broken isn't such a bad thing."

I chuckled a bit. "It's very easy for you to say that."

"Yes, it is. Your broken arm will heal. My leg muscle won't grow back. Just a little reminder of how lucky you are."

"I don't need to be reminded." I said, wondering about his pensive mood. If his leg was bothering him again we were both going to be in a world of hurt, literally and figuratively.

"You've been zonked out for quite a while. Sleeping as deep as anyone I've seen outside a coma. I checked to make sure you were still breathing."

"Yes, Greg. I'm still very much alive."

"That's open for a debate," he said with a faint smirk. "When's the last time you ate something?"

"I don't know."

"You up for hauling your corpse out to the kitchen for some food?"

"Let's make sure I can stand up first," I said, carefully sitting up and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The dizziness was still there, but not too bad. It felt like I went for a few trips on a Tilt-A-Whirl. If I could survive a tumble down some concrete stairs with some relatively minor injuries, all things considered, walking to the kitchen shouldn't be too much of a challenge. If I passed out, then I would admit I was wrong. After I woke up, of course.

I waited a few minutes and the dizziness didn't get any worse, so I took the brave step of standing up. The floor and ceiling didn't change places, a good sign if I ever saw one. One step, then two, and the doorway was still in focus. Very good news. I didn't remember the kitchen being so far away, but maybe that was just the knock on the head and hunger skewering my perspective on things. Greg took my arm and guided me to the table. I didn't object. A helpful Greg House is good thing to have around. I flopped into the chair with an immense sense of relief.

"What's on the menu?" I asked.

"You in the mood for a sandwich?"

"Sounds great."

Greg methodically and quietly made both us a roast beef sandwich. He brought the milk to the table and poured two glasses. Without thinking I reached for my glass with my left hand and nearly knocked it over. He didn't say a word the entire time. Something was definitely eating at him. My stomach sank and my appetite died right then and there.

"Something bothering you, Greg?"

"Yeah, you could say that," he mumbled between bites, a blob of mayonnaise sticking to the corner of his mouth.

"What is it?" I asked heedfully, not even sure if I wanted to know the answer.

Too late. The answer was a bit of a surprise, though. "I'm just worried about you, that's all," he said languidly.

Those words smacked me like the concrete against my skull. I nearly fell out of the chair. "Um...why?" was all I could manage before my throat closed up.

"I shouldn't have to answer that. But if you really want an answer just go look in the mirror."

"You...you were really that concerned?" I stuttered.

"Are you really shocked that I'm worried?"

"Yes, I am."

"When I see the one person I really care about looking like he just got hit by a truck, yeah, that tends to bring out some worry and concern in me." He glanced up, his expression flat and serious.

"I'll be fine. You don't have to worry about me."

"You weren't fine when that bone was sticking out of your arm. You weren't fine when I set your arm and you screamed loud enough to blow my eardrums out. You weren't fine when that migraine nearly drove you insane. So if you don't mind, I'm going to worry about you for a while. Now shut up and eat your sandwich."


	21. Chapter 21

It all happened in slow motion. I could see it perfectly: the expensive foreign cars, the dreary stairwell even in the bright late summer weather, discarded coffee cups and cigarette butts all over the place. There was no time to react. I knew what was coming, but even in the slow motion replay there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. The shadow loomed over me like a wave about to crash onto the beach, then slammed into my shoulder, knocking me off balance. Everything twisted and turned as my world was literally upside-down. I pitched down the stairs, feeling every bump and scratch. My left arm gets the worst of it; I heard a sickening crunch–

"Take it easy, Jimmy...take it easy..." Those words are repeated over and over in a soothing voice as I squinted in the light and tried to catch my breath.

The living room in all its familiar glory spun a few times, mercifully stopping before I threw up. I was on the sofa with a blanket tangled all around me, clutching at a pillow as if it were a life preserver. It was all coming back now...Greg didn't want me out of his sight for the time being so he got me a pillow and blanket and ordered me to stay put. I grumbled, but stretched out with his arm around me and fell asleep to the jumbled nonsense of a stupid soap opera.

"Sit up," he said. Easier said than done as I was still tad bit disoriented. An arm encircled my waist and pulled me into a sitting position. "You were just dreaming."

"Yeah...yeah...thanks for the information. I never would have figured that out on my own," I groused, not meaning for it to come out so bitterly, but it did.

"You were talking and moaning in your sleep," he said. Still worried about me, I could hear it.

The room came back into focus. _World's Wildest Police Videos_ was racing along the television screen, the volume down low. "I fell down the stairs," I mumbled while watching a drunk driver plow into a tree. "I fell down the stairs and broke my arm."

"Is that what you were dreaming about? You said you didn't remember it."

"I was just walking down the stairs and this idiot runs into me...Christ, I could have broken my goddamn _neck_!" I stared at the cast in disbelief. Greg had written his name on it in big block letters while I was asleep. "That son-of-a-bitch nearly killed me for a checkbook! _A fucking checkbook_!"

"Jimmy, it's okay."

"My life is worth more than a few hundred dollars!"

"Calm down–"

"I'm glad he's fucking _dead_!"

"_Jimmy! That's enough!_" Greg dug his hand into my shoulder and spun me around. The look on his face could have peeled the paint off the walls. "Calm down, alright? Just calm down." He softened and the fierce glare in his eyes melted to genuine apprehension.

My rather disquieting fit of anger left as quickly as it came. "Yeah, yeah...okay..I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." The urge to burst into tears suddenly flooded over me. I held it back with everything I had. All I wanted was to go back to work and fall back into our routine. I wanted my regular, everyday, boring, Volvo driving life back. "Greg, I'm sorry...I'm–"

"I know," he said, and managed a tiny smile. "Considering what you've been through, that little meltdown was hardly unjustified."

I leaned back and closed my eyes, watching the colored pinwheels circle against the blackness. "I didn't mean to get so angry...I didn't mean to yell at you."

"I know you didn't."

"I was just suddenly _furious_, and wanted to yell at someone...anyone..."

"You weren't yelling at me, you were yelling at Mr. Purse Thief."

"I suppose you're right," I said with a flat chuckle, opening my eyes and staring through the ceiling. "It was so real. I saw everything, felt everything. It was like going through it all over again."

"I can see that. You're white as a sheet," he said, some concern creeping back into his words. "How are you feeling? Is your head still hurting?"

"A little bit." My head felt like it was full of mud, and my mind felt just as clear.

"How's your arm?"

"It's broken."

He snickered at that. "That it is," Greg said. " Does it hurt?"

"It's starting to," I grimaced at my now useless dominant arm. The next few weeks were going to be a bit of a challenge. Trying to do everything with my right hand would probably drive me nuts if the itching of the cast didn't.

I took another migraine pill and settled back into the pillow. All was calm again, everything was right with the world for the moment. Greg put his arm around my shoulder. It was a nice, comforting gesture and made me feel better than the medicine.


	22. Chapter 22

The doorbell was ringing. And ringing. And ringing again just in case I didn't hear it the first time. _Greg, where are you? Answer the damn door already!_ Wait...does Greg even have a doorbell? I didn't know. All I knew for sure was the incessant chimes were driving me up the wall.

The chiming was coming from the far corner. A weird place for a door. There isn't a door over there, idiot. Windows, but no doors. That's were the piano sits. Tucked safely away in its own little corner.

I was alone on the sofa. My head was buried in the big soft pillow and the blanket was piled over me like an avalanche of cotton. The chimes kept echoing through the room, rolling back and forth like thunder through a stormy sky. Not chimes, piano notes. The same few notes over and over again. _I know that song._ Then it clicked: 'King of Pain' by The Police.

Light came from the far corner, the only light in the room. It was dusky over where I was. My head wasn't complaining. The migraine medicine was still holding the pain back. When the dam burst again I could only hope it wouldn't be along the lines of the Johnstown flood. Long shadows crawled up to the ceiling while 'King of Pain' continued its endless loop.

I hauled myself up to my feet. My left side felt heavy. The damn cast. My arm felt like it was attached to an anchor. It was going to be with me for weeks. I sighed and looked at the signatures and noticed something new: GH+JW. Either Greg's sense of humor was more warped than I ever imagined or the migraine drugs were making me hallucinate. I shook my head and looked again. Still there. I wouldn't be surprised if I found our initials scrawled in every bathroom stall in the hospital.

I made my way towards the music. My muscles were tight and ached like hell. I still hadn't looked at myself in a mirror. I'd try not to scream too loud when the time came.

He was leaning on one elbow, mindlessly tapping at the keys with his other hand. A glass of scotch and bottle of Vicodin kept him company.

"Is that your new favorite song?" I asked, leaning against the wall.

Greg looked up and the music stopped as if someone had yanked out the plug. He didn't look surprised to see me, more like he was passing the time waiting for me to wake up. "_Synchronicity_ was released in 1983, so I'd call it an _old_ favorite," he said. "You're a child of the 80's, you should know that. I've adopted it as my theme song. It fits rather well, don't you think?"

"It's you," I replied, then held up the autographed arm. "What's with the initials?"

"I thought it was cute."

"Is that so?"

"You don't believe me, Jimmy?"

"No. 'Greg House' and 'cute' don't belong in the same sentence. You don't do 'cute', Greg. What's next, are you going to buy me friendship ring with a little gold heart on it?"

"You're going to wear it if I do," he chuckled. "Our initials are there because I wanted them there. Claiming my property, as you well know. Don't even think of covering them up, young man, or I'll get you drunk and have our initials tattooed on your ass."

"That sounds like something you would do. Nothing cute, just vindictive."

"Hmmm...I've been hanging around you too long."

"How's that?"

"I'm starting to get _predictable_."

I shuffled over and joined him on the piano bench. "Are you still worried about me, Greg?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The looping notes started up again in random intervals.

"I told you, I'll be fine." It was a foolish argument to make, but I had to make it even though I probably looked like an extra from a George Romero film. Greg wouldn't believe a word of it. Maybe I didn't either. Maybe I was just saying it because I was worried too, about him and myself.

"Well, Jimmy, when you wake up tomorrow morning so blinded by a headache that you can't lift your head off the pillow, feel free to remind me how fine you really are. Tomorrow you shall find out what the true meaning of pain is. When I bring your medicine when the migraine comes back I would like a 'thank you' for my troubles. I'm pretty sure you can manage that."

"Thank you," I mumbled barely loud enough to be heard above the music.

He looked over, a tiny grin tugging at his mouth. "You're welcome. While you're still coherent, can I ask a little favor from you?"

"What?" I asked, curious.

"Stay away from rogue purse-snatchers."

"They'd do better to stay away from me. Next time I'm not tumbling down the stairs alone."

"You're not tumbling down the stairs ever again," he said, then a slight frown clouded his features. "You're probably going to be in pain tomorrow, Jimmy. It's not going to be a little tension headache."

"It's going to hurt. I know."

"You wish you knew. Anyway, under the threat of being nagged to death Cuddy let me take a few days off to look after her favorite oncologist."

"I'm her favorite? Is that true?"

"No," Greg smirked, "but you're _my_ favorite."


	23. Chapter 23

It was déjà vu all over again.

I was pretty much helpless, relying on someone else to make sure I was A-Okay. I wasn't, but that's not the point. The point of all my rambling: I was all but useless and that was something most people didn't like to see or observe in their doctor, and I can't really blame them. Of course I didn't ask to be knocked down the damn stairs and hear my arm go _crunch_ anymore than I asked for shingles. And like the shingles there was nothing I could do except wait it out. Life can be such a major pain in the ass sometimes.

If there is a silver lining to all this it's the fact that there was someone here for me. Someone who would make sure I was somewhat alive even if it killed me. I'm lucky in that respect. The thought of trying to get through this all alone made me shudder. Being alone was bad enough, being alone and wounded was the stuff of nightmares. How Greg made it through all those years by himself was an effort to be applauded. He may be broken, but there are parts of him that might be fixed.

Broken...broken...a strange thought swirled in my head, just below the surface. Dammit, what the hell was it? It was a weird thing Greg told me in the hospital. I could hear his voice, I just couldn't make out the words. What was he saying? I need to remember or else it would drive to me the edge of whatever sanity I had left.

_My spirit is broken, not my leg_.

That was it. Greg and his cryptic out-of-the-blue comments. More often than not those comments have a meaning behind them. I looked at him now, sitting at his piano, playing away without a care in the world. Thankfully he had chosen a slow soft song to play and I had to admit it was very calming. One of his few positive outlets for his pent-up aggression. What the broken spirit comment meant, I had no idea. It had nothing to do with me being in the hospital. He'd explain it to me one of these days, but not right now. He was lost in his music. It was a good place to be and I wasn't going to drag him out unless it was a real emergency. I sat there and listened. It wouldn't hurt to lose myself for a while. The while was a short one. The migraine came back and kicked my ass into tomorrow.

Tomorrow was a better place to be. I was one day closer to getting over this and going back to helping the sick, even if I was flat on my back and my head had a 747 flying around in infinite circles. A few more tomorrows and everything would be just fine. Please let that be true. I think I deserve it.

Greg kept me company for a while, snoozing his way through a brief afternoon nap. He held me close and wouldn't let go. It was nice to have him there, to feel his heartbeat with mine; more reassuring than anyone who didn't know us or our history could ever understand. I think he had stayed up all night and once again he had to worry about me instead of his leg. No need to ask which one bothered him more. As Greg said before, he shouldn't have to answer that.

* * *

I dragged myself into the bathroom and took a good look in the mirror. That was a huge mistake. My face looked like the end result of what might if the average person drunkenly decided to tease Mike Tyson about that ear biting incident. Every lovely shade of purple and lavender colored the bruises that spread down to my left cheek, punctuated by a pair of droopy bloodshot eyes. When Greg told me I looked like hell, he was wrong. Hell only wished it come close to the horror that stared back in the mirror. 

A soft knocking on the door, followed by, "You okay in there? Did you fall in?"

"I'm fine. I'll be out in a minute." I splashed some cold water on my face while trying to remember that the cast shouldn't get wet. A few little spatters landed. I'd do better next time. The cold water was a nice change from the endless days of searing migraines. The shock of the sudden freezing sensation on my skin reminded me that I was alive. Bruised, battered, beaten, but alive. The idiot who pushed me down the stairs wasn't. That thought made my knees buckle. No need to dwell on it. He chose to run from the police and paid the price. I stood up, swallowed my anger, and shuffled out to the living room.

There was a pillow, blanket, a glass of milk, and a plate of cheese and crackers waiting for me in the living room.

_You're not my patient, Jimmy._

_Yes, Greg, I can see that._

"You need another pill?" Greg asked as I collapsed onto the cushions.

"No, not right now," I said, then nibbled on a piece of cheese.

"How's your arm?"

"Still broken. It's not itching like crazy yet, if that's what you're asking."

"I wasn't, but thanks for telling me all the same," Greg chuckled. "Let me know when it does and I'll straighten out a coat hanger for you."

"You're too kind."

"No, I'm too much. But you seem to like me anyway."

"You think?"

"I _know_. Those puppy dog eyes of yours tell me everything."

"Yeah, well, I guess you're okay."

"So are you. I don't scrawl my initials on casts for just anyone. Remember that if and when someone asks you about it."

* * *

My mother called later that evening. She and Dad had gotten back to the lower 48 the night before. When I told her about the whole purse snatcher and broken arm, she nearly had an aneurysm. 

"James! For goodness sake, why didn't you or Greg call us?"

"We didn't know you were back. Besides, I've been zonked out or blinded by a migraine. Making a phone call was the last thing on my mind."

"You should have had Greg call us," she scolded, ignoring everything I just told her. "You're lucky it was your arm and not–"

"I know, Mom," I sighed, thoroughly sick of discussing which bones were smashed or not. "I know. I'm sorry. If you don't mind, I'd rather talk about something else."

"Just tell me you're all right," Mom said in that listen-to-me-or-else mother tone that got us kids to put our clothes in the hamper and do our homework. It worked just as well now as it did then.

"I'm not much to look at right now, but I'll be fine. If the big-wigs at the hospital don't like my indecipherable right-handed scribble, that's too bad. It's going to have to do for a few weeks. You don't have to worry, Mom."

"Don't ever tell me to not worry. Of course I'm going to worry. That's what mothers do," she said and laughed softly. "How's Greg doing? Is he okay?"

"He's fine." I glanced over my shoulder. "Mom says hello." Greg waved hello at the telephone and turned back to _American Justice_. "How's Dad?"

"He's asleep on the couch."

"So it's just like any other day."

"Yes, nothing ever changes," she said. "Listen, James, I need to talk to you."

"Sure. What about?"

"It's about David."

The bottom of my stomach fell out, the room tilted like the Titanic after meeting the iceberg. I knew nothing good was going to come out of this conversation. "What about David?" I said, my voice struggled from my throat. This was not good at all. One or both of us was going to end up smashing the phone against the wall.

"That last day you saw him...you saw him on a street corner, right?"

"Yes." David on that filthy corner in a part of town that classified as a war-zone. Mumbling about getting his next fix. His eyes wide and glazed, ignoring my pleads to get in the car. All I could do was watch him stumble down the street, looking for his dealer. An image burned into my memory forever. A little piece of me disappeared that day along with my brother. "Yes, I saw him."

"He was looking for his dealer?"

"What else would he be doing out there?" I said, an edge creeping into my voice.

"You're right."

"Yes, unfortunately."

"That's all that mattered to him in the end, those damn drugs." Her tone turned sad and defeated.

"Mom, do you have any idea who got him started on them? Did he ever mention that to you?"

"No. From then on, until I told him to come to the house anymore, all he talked about was getting his hands on some money. By the way, I should tell you that he had plenty of money to spend the day he disappeared. That's the reason I called."

"Plenty?" I frowned. "What are you talking about? How would you know? You weren't even talking to him anymore by then."

"He had plenty of money that day, James. I should know. I gave it to him."


	24. Chapter 24

The worst kind of scars are the invisible scars, the ones that carried around here, there and everywhere. Those are the kind of scars that can't heal, ever. There are plenty of bright and sunny who are just dying to tell me I should appreciate what I have, life is wonderful, look at all the cute little bunnies and kittens. Said obnoxious people haven't been through what I've been through, and they should consider themselves very very lucky. They haven't had their arm broken and haven't been blindsided by their mother in the space of a few short days.

I wound up locking myself in the bathroom, sitting at the edge of the bathtub, trying to collect my thoughts. If there is one thing I have learned over the past few weeks it's that just when I think it can't get any worse, answer an innocent phone call or go park in the supposedly safe garage and wait a few minutes.

David had showed up at the house that day, raving a mile a minute. He wanted my checkbook and ATM card. Why he thought Mom was the guardian of _my_ finances was anyone's guess. But if I had to guess, I would say it was because all of his money was up his arm or in a crack-pipe, so the next logical step, in his crack-fried brain anyway, was to get his hands on mine. Of course, he wasn't going to see a dime of that even if I had been there counting my savings and college money on the kitchen table. Mom was home alone and scared. She gave him what she had in her purse to make him shut up and get the hell out. That was the last time she saw him. The next day she had two extra deadbolts put on the front and back doors.

Did my mother do the right thing? I don't know. If she thought it was the right thing, why did she keep it a secret for ten years? I don't know that, either.

Maybe he could have left with no money. Maybe he would have been arrested. Maybe he would found himself in a different neighborhood and I could have talked him into the car. Maybe he would still be alive. Maybe we could have got him into a clinic. Maybe he could have got clean and gone to college. Maybe, maybe, maybe. David is still dead just the same. The maybes don't count anymore.

"Jimmy? Can you open the door?" Greg's muffled voice echoed into the bathroom. The floorboards creaked under his weight. I could see his shadow whirling through the gap under the door.

I ignored him. I was numb and wanted to stay that way. Being numb meant no pain. No pain meant no more wounds to leave those invisible scars. The perfect solution. Seemed perfectly logical to me. Anything seems logical when it's impossible to think straight.

"Jimmy, open the door. There's only bathroom in this apartment and you can't have it."

"Shut up, Greg. Please, just _shut up!_"

"Open the door or you're going back to the spare bedroom."

"I don't care." Anger began to creep in. At that moment I didn't care about anything. Normally I would have been scared at such a realization. Over the last few weeks I had lost track of what normal was supposed to be. Normal moved away from my little universe and didn't leave a forwarding address.

"You will. I give it three days before you come crawling back."

"Will you just go away and leave me alone?" I was dancing on the edge of numbness and anger. It was a volatile mix and threatening to explode.

"Jimmy, yelling at me isn't going to change what your mother did or bring your brother back. Now open the door."

I got up, my knees shaking, and unlocked the door. Greg limped in, a mixture of unease and rumination played across his features.

"Did she talk to you? Did she tell you what she did?" I asked in a quavering voice.

"No," he answered flatly. "She called you, not me. But I heard all I needed to hear."

"It took her ten years to tell me."

"Is that so wrong? If Mom had made this big confession five years ago instead of tonight, would that have changed anything?"

"I doubt it," I grumbled.

"She didn't have to tell you at all," Greg said pointedly, making sure I got the hint. "What was this bombshell anyway?"

I told him. He didn't seem surprised.

"How much money did she give him?" he asked.

"I don't know. She didn't say."

"If she hadn't forked over the money, he would have swiped the television."

"Probably." I muttered, knowing he was right.

"Not probably, absolutely. I think your mother wanted to tell you," Greg said quietly. "She was just waiting for that one special day."

"And what would that be?"

"The day your brother came home. Now that the stone of your drug-addict brother not around her neck anymore, she's free to move on to the next one."


	25. Chapter 25

I suppose my mother figured she had done the right thing. If she had to, she'd do it all over again. That did nothing to soften the impact. If I didn't already have a blow to the head to deal with, I'd say it felt like she hit me with a brick.

The numb feeling still had me in its grip when Greg led me back to the sofa, where I took another migraine pill and mummified myself in the blanket while he turned on A&E and ran his fingers through my hair like there was no tomorrow. As long as his leg didn't start hurting again and turn him vicious, I could make through the night without a breakdown.

I had a feeling that Greg was letting some of his soft side filter through right now more for show than anything else, but I was glad to see it nonetheless. Of course, what constitutes Greg's soft side will seem like everyday-smartass-attitude to the rest of the world. Let them. I know him well enough to see through it. I can count on one hand how many people can see him the way I do. He likes it that way and I'm not going to be the one spoil it for him.

"You staying home tomorrow?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. On the television, the morose narrator told the viewers all about the murder of Bob Crane.

"Yup."

"You don't have to."

"I don't have to do anything," he said tersely. He wasn't irritated with me, just irritated with life in general. He didn't need an excuse or a specific target. "I'm staying home because you're still getting migraines and I'm not about to let sit out a migraine by yourself. You're stuck with me whether you like it or not."

I didn't care one way or the other, actually, but was smart enough not to say that out loud. "Your most prized possession has few nicks and scratches," I commented just to see what he would say.

"He's going make a full recovery or die trying."

"Thank you for that assurance, Greg, it was so uplifting."

"You're more than welcome. I know how to make people feel all pretty inside. It's a gift."

"A gift? I hope you kept the receipt."

"All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges."

Both of us chuckled at our little dialogue. Some of the numbness thawed, and I felt a little better even though another migraine was trying to pound its way in. I remembered his cryptic comments from the bathroom, his theories on Mom's motivations. "Do you think my mother is keeping anything else from me?" I asked.

He hesitated for a few beats, then said, "If you truly want to know, the answer is yes. But the real question is, do you? And do you really want to know what it is?"

"I have a right to know."

"Yes, you do, Jimmy. But that doesn't answer my questions. Do you want really want to know and do you really want to know what it is? Your mother seems to be the confidante of the Wilson family."

"She is," I agreed.

"Yes, she is. I'm sure there are lots of little things about your various relatives that you don't know about. Do you really want a list of each and every one of their dirty little secrets?"

"I'm not talking about the rest of my family. I'm talking about my mother and David."

"If you want to know if your mother is hiding anything, then ask her. Just keep in mind that you probably won't like what you hear."

"I know that."

"Good. Now ask yourself this–will pulling all the skeletons out of your family closet give you the answers you're looking for?"

"I want to know what happened to David."

"You already know what happened to him," Greg said curtly, looking down at me. "He got hooked on crack, disappeared for ten years, reappeared out of thin air, punched you out, and died. What else do you need to know?"

"I want to find out how he got hooked in the first place."

"And you think your mother knows? Is that the big secret she's been hiding from you?"

"I don't know," I said, unwrapping myself and sitting up. "But maybe she can point me in the right direction."

"I see. Now answer these questions, Dr. Wilson–why is this so important to you _now_ and why didn't you try to find this out ten years ago?"

"I was busy," I said, realizing how lame it sounded a second too late. I felt the blush creep up.

"No kidding."

I sighed and explained, "I was still in med school, giving my mother a shoulder to cry when she couldn't cry on Dad's, still believing along with her that David would magically reappear. I guess I needed to prove to her that I wasn't going to end up like him."

"The perfect son Mommy always wanted," Greg said, and it wasn't a question.

"I'm hardly perfect."

"How very true, but you're not a drug addict like some people you know. Lots of brownie points for you. So you made marriages your drug of choice," he said evenly.

"They aren't illegal," I pointed out.

"Lucky you," Greg said. "Now it's time for one last question."

"Do I even want to know what you're going to ask me now?"

"Probably not, but I would like to know the answer. The long journey of David Wilson has come to an end. You know what happened, more or less. You didn't turn out like him. So answer me this–why do you still need to prove to your mother that you're the perfect son. I'd think she would have noticed by now."


	26. Chapter 26

_A/N: Jimmy has a semi-good day. Yeehaw!_

* * *

"You and I have a whole day off tomorrow," Greg said. We were still on the sofa, his arm was around me. A nice and comforting gesture; I'd take it anyway it came. I couldn't see his face but I knew he was grinning Since my family situation had put me in a less-than-stellar mood, he was attempting to lighten things up a little. That was kind of strange for a man who lived and breathed on his own misery. I guess I was only allowed to be miserable when it suited him. Or he was honestly trying to make me feel better. 

"Wow, a whole entire day," I muttered, feeling sleepy. The day went on and on with no end in sight. It was like finding the horizon only to find another. "Pinch me, I must be dreaming."

"What's on your agenda tomorrow, Dr. Wilson?"

"Just don't wake me up before 9am and my agenda can be whatever you want it to be."

"Alrighty then. 9:01am it is," he chuckled quietly. "Then I tie you to the bedpost and have my way with you."

"_What?_" I was suddenly wide awake. Gee, I wonder why.

"I'm kidding. Settle down."

"Didn't you threaten to tie me to a chair before? Tie me up with my ugly ties. Isn't that what you said?"

"The bed will be more comfortable. I'm just thinking of you, Jimmy. Remember that."

"Some of those ties are silk. Those things aren't cheap."

"Such is the price of vanity. What they lack in style I'm sure they'll make up for in resilience. A stupidly expensive piece of fabric like that should be able to withstand being looped around the bedpost a few times."

"Always thinking of me and my taste in clothes," I said, looking at the bottle of pills on the table with a diminutive frown. "I'll probably wake up with a migraine tomorrow."

"Yeah," Greg agreed. "That usually kills the mood. Maybe luck will be with you and it won't wake you up before 9am."

His fingers came up and tickled my neck, making me squirm. Another soft chuckle drifted down to my ears and I had to grin. I felt a little better. Not enough to lift the boulder of anxiety of my back, but it lightened the load. Hooray for me.

* * *

Luck did appear to be on my side for a change. Not a gigantic pile of luck, but enough to let me face another day. The migraine didn't appear; instead it was replace by a really bad headache. Another pill and I settled back into the pillow to wait it out. Greg chose to wait it out with me. "I feel like cuddling," he said, throwing the blanket back over us. "So sue me." Either I was going to have to check all the closets for the pod or his rather unknown and underrated protective mode was working overtime. I shouldn't complain. It's more than my wives ever did. During my second marriage I caught a bad cold. My wife wouldn't come within ten feet of me for two days for fear of catching it herself. On day three she brought me a cup of tea. The next day she got sick. Served her right. 

"You're arm okay? Any itching?" he asked.

"No. Everything's good."

"Any sign of a rash? Some people have a reaction to the cast."

"I know, Greg. I went to med school too."

"Oncologists don't usually treat broken bones. Now answer my question."

"No. No rash. No itching. Your question has been answered."

"There, was that so hard?" He stretched out and draped an arm over my waist. "My Jimmy is on the mend. You'll be out and about before you know it."

Of course, he zeroed in on another weird time–me waiting for a pounding headache to pass–to talk my ears off. Once he gets going he can't stop. It's like trying to shut off Niagra Falls. When he's yakking away that more often than not meant he was in a relatively good mood. All the better to keep him that way. "Good as new," I muttered. The shades were down, leaving the late morning looking like dusk.

"Maybe even better," he said while inching his way closer. "Just don't cross paths with another criminal."

"I'll try not to." I felt his stubbly chin scrape against my neck. Light scratching, a little hint of the upside to driving each other to the brink of madness.

"You better do more than try. One long night of staring at your bumps and bruises and broken bones is plenty."

The medicine kicked in and my headache was circling the drain. I turned over and caught his eyes. "Were you really there all night?"

"Damn right I was," Greg replied as he hitched up on his elbow and looked down at me, daring me to challenge his integrity and honesty, especially when there was no reason for him to lie to begin with.

"That's the truth? No exaggeration just to make me feel better?"

"I grabbed a short nap in Exam Room 2, but other than that I was in _your_ room, looking out for _you_, making sure I was at least close by with some fabulous drugs for when you woke up in a great deal of _pain_."

I scowled at the memory of waking up in the hospital. "You got that right," I sighed.

"Were you surprised that I was there?"

"No."

"You're a lousy liar, Dr. Wilson."

"You were looking out for what's yours, right Greg?" I said, taking great pains to make sure he heard every word I spoke at that moment. "I wouldn't expect any less from you."

He grinned a crooked grin. "Kissing up without an ounce of shame. I _love_ it."

"I knew you would."

"Hmmm...is that manipulation coming from you? Why Jimmy, I believe you've learned a thing or two from me."

"I've learned from the best," I snickered.

"Yes, you have. Your head's feeling better?"

"Sure. I'm okay."

He leaned in and brushed his mouth against mine. "That's what I like to hear. We've got an afternoon to kill. Where are your ties?"


	27. Chapter 27

Thankfully, my ties remained safely tucked away. My ties may be ugly, but they're still mine and I paid good money for them. I don't want Greg to get the idea that he can pull them out whenever he wanted and turn me into his own personal Im-Ho-Tep. They would never make it beyond the bedroom ever again. He can go get his own ties or buy some fur-lined handcuffs like everyone else.

The idea of having the afternoon off and me having to depend on him flipped some kind of hidden switch within Greg. His timing was more out of whack than a broken pinball machine. I was covered with bruises, suffering from debilitating headaches, had a cast up to my elbow, and he was still ready and willing to rip my shirt off. The sky was the limit as far as he was concerned, especially on a day like today. A whole afternoon to kill, remember? Hours and hours that were just waiting for some kind of activity to make them pass by. Whatever would two red-blooded bisexual males do? I didn't need three guesses to figure out what was on his mind. The first two never counted, anyway. He always made sure of that.

Unfortunately, at that particular time, I had my limits. Believe me, that's the last thing I wanted to admit, but there was a very good reason as to why I was at home, looking like I had just escaped from the clutches of Jigsaw. My battered, aching limbs could barely carry me to the kitchen, let alone survive some impromptu bedroom games. I told him and he didn't believe it. I told him again and he still didn't believe it.

"Please tell me this is all an elaborate practical joke," he said.

"Do I look like I'm capable of a practical joke right now? No. Sorry."

"You really know how to crush a guy's ego," he grumbled, still tugging at my tee-shirt. "Squash it like an overripe tomato."

"This isn't about you and your darling ego," I replied, pushing his all-too-eager hands away with a huge pang of regret. "This is about me getting some rest and healing up so I can go back to my patients. Not today, Greg. Please. I don't feel like using my sore body to indulge your sudden onset of nymphomania."

"That's what drugs are for."

"Drugs can't make the bruises go away or magically fix the bones."

"Hmm...too damned true. However, I seem to recall you _begging_ me not to stop last week."

"Yeah, well, I hadn't been knocked down a flight of stairs yet."

"_Hmph_...excuses, excuses. It takes more than a few broken bones and a bump on the head to keep my Jimmy down."

"It's not going to keep me down forever–"

"Not unless you're the first human whose bones are made from chalk–"

"–but it's going to keep me down for _now_."

"How soon is now, Jimmy?" He propped back up on his elbow, his eyes held my complete attention. "You know, I love a man who isn't too proud to beg."

"Some things are more than worth begging for. What about you?" I had to ask. "Are you too proud to beg?"

"I'm not proud."

"What are you, then?"

"_Shameless._"

"Does being shameless exempt you from begging?"

"No, and I know when _not_ to beg too," he said, pulling my shirt back down and smoothing down the front. "I certainly don't want to be the one to hurt you more than you already are. Me and my darling ego will just have to wait."

"Just thinking of me, right?" I snickered.

"That, too," he grinned devilishly. He wasn't through with me yet. "I have a request."

"Request?" I puzzled. "You're requesting something from _me_? Who are you and what have you done with Greg? Or is that just a polite way of begging?"

"If you don't shut up you're going to have some broken teeth to go along with your broken arm."

"Ah, so it is the real Greg."

"The real Greg never left."

"So I see. What is this oh-so-important _request_?"

"It's very simple. All you have to do is answer yes or no."

"Okay, it's simple. Mind telling me what it is?"

He didn't answer, just leaned into a deep, raw kiss. There were no words to reply with, all I could do was kiss him back. He pulled me closer and I didn't resist, I couldn't. Everything was kept above the neck. Kisses were fine with me. This was just what I needed to feel better. There were worse ways to kill a long afternoon.


	28. Chapter 28

Nothing good can last forever. I think it's because the old saying 'time flies when you're having fun' is all too true. The make-out session was enjoyable. I have to admit, Greg sure as hell knows what he's doing in those situations. Alas, it had to end on a somewhat sour note. My head began to throb again and pretty much threw a wet blanket on everything. I spent the rest of the afternoon swallowing pain pills, dozing and scratching at the whisker burns all over my neck. Greg kept me company for while before he could no longer ignore the call of those damn soaps. I listened to a couple of trampy characters have a screaming catfight before falling asleep.

* * *

What the hell was he doing out here? He must have hitched a ride. Mom said she thought there was another person in the car he was riding in. His own car was long gone, sold for about a tenth its value. He must have money on him or something that could be pawned. I had to find him and get him the hell out of here. 

It was almost amazing how the scenery changed from the small but well-cared for lawns and houses a few miles back to a depressing mix of ugly, mostly abandoned buildings and sad little homes with peeling paint and droopy porches. Liquor stores and tiny groceries tried to eek out a living on every corner. I saw more than one hollow-eyed person pushing shopping carts filled with everything they had, sleeping bags; boxes; piles of junk; down the cracked sidewalks. A hooker tried to flag me down. I didn't see her until the last second and nearly ran her over.

I caught sight of him stumbling down the road, past a junked-out car that was probably older than I was. I screeched the car to a halt and jumped out.

"David!" I shouted, running after him.

He turned around and I stopped dead in my tracks. My brother, who once looked a lot like me, was about 25 pounds lighter, looked much older than his 30 years, and had that glassy-eyed stare that I had come to know all too well. His cheeks were pale and hollow, his hair a shaggy mess. The top of a crack pipe peaked out of his back pocket. My heart sank as I took it all in. How could this be? How could this happen _my_ brother? He looked exactly like what he was–a hopeless drug addict.

"Get in the car." I tried to sound tough and serious, but my voice faltered at what I was seeing.

"Go away, James," he muttered and turned back around.

"David, just get in the goddamn car!"

"No!"

"You need help." I grabbed his arm. He yanked it back roughly, giving me a look that could melt steel.

"What I need is a hit," he growled, his voice low and threatening.

"Get in the car and I'll take you to that rehab clinic–"

"Get the fuck out of here. I don't want your help."

"It has a really good program. I'll pay for it–"

"I don't need any fucking favors, especially from you. Just leave me alone."

"David, please..."

"_Go away!_"

"David, _please_..."

"Hey!" Another voice broke in. The street corner from hell was gone, replaced by golden afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows and the familiar shapes of the night table and dresser in the bedroom. My hand was gripping the corner of the sheet so tightly the knuckles were about split through the skin. I let go and my hand cramped. A bead of sweat trickled into my eye, clouding my vision for a moment with a salty burn.

Greg was leaning over me, concern etched into every line on his face. "You okay?"

"What? What is it?" I looked around the room. Nothing appeared to be smashed on the floor.

"You were calling out your brother's name."

"I was?"

"I could hear you in the kitchen."

"Sorry." The salt continued to sting.

"Save it for something worth being sorry about." He settled at the edge of the bed, never taking his eyes off me. "You kept saying 'David, please.' You were saying that over and over again."

"I was trying to get him in the car," The numbness swallowed me up again. I gripped a pillow as if it were a life preserver. There should have been a life preserver for David too, but somehow it got overlooked. Because I didn't look hard enough.

"The last time you saw him? That's what you were dreaming about?"

"Yeah. He wouldn't get in the car." My voice began to break. I was so fucking pathetic.

"He made his choice, Jimmy."

"And I made mine!" More salt stung my eyes, this time from the flood of tears. So fucking pathetic. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. "I let him walk away!"

"No, you didn't."

"I should have dragged him into my car. I should have thrown him in the trunk and drove him to the clinic."

"Stop blaming yourself."

"I could have helped him!"

"He made his choice and he paid for it. There was nothing you could have done."

I cried, burying my head in my hands. "I just let him walk away. Why did I do that? Why? _Why_?"


	29. Chapter 29

It was a nice warm evening. A breeze stirred through the open windows of the apartment. A few straggling fireflies clung to the kitchen window like living stars. Even that lovely scene couldn't help me shake the feeling that I was the most wretched, worthless, pitiful human being to ever breath free air.

"What makes you think anything would have turned out differently if you had been able to get him in the car?" Greg asked, passing me a box of sweet and sour rice across the table, then a Pepsi.

"I would have driven him to rehab. He would got the help he needed," I answered. Normally I would have been wolfing down my meal, but today it looked and smelled like dog food. Greg shot me a warning glare and I started eating. Maybe a nice big dinner would stuff down my guilt for a while. At least it wasn't real dog food.

"He wouldn't accept help from his own family on a silver platter, but he would accept it from complete strangers?" He divided up the egg rolls. I noticed he had one more than I did.

"It would have been better than doing nothing, which is what I basically did," I said, and snatched his extra egg roll when he turned around to get his drink off the counter. I didn't really want it, but it was the principle of the thing. Let him see what it's like to have his mind screwed around with for a change. Teach him a lesson or two.

"You seem so sure about that," he remarked laconically, and took a swig of my drink to let me know I wasn't fooling him for a nanosecond. "You really think David would have stayed? Were you prepared to chain him to the bed? Do you really think your little trip to the rehab clinic would have been his instant and immediate salvation?"

"I like to think so."

"There's no middle ground here. 'I like to think so' doesn't count. Yes or no?" He munched on an egg roll and waited patiently for my answer.

I hesitated before finally saying, "Yes." The rice felt like gravel going down my throat.

"Is that what David was always like? He had to be dragged into something kicking and screaming?"

"No...," I sputtered like an idiot.

"Could he be forced to something he didn't want to do?"

"Not hardly."

"So, basically what you are saying is that the whole trip to Walt Disney's Rehabland would _not_ have been his salvation, it would have been a quick and dirty way to appease your conscious by putting off the inevitable. Because if you had been able to get him in that car, you could have at least said you gave it your best shot."

"The rehab clinic might have helped him," I muttered. "But it never got that far. I'll never know."

"No, you won't."

"Am I supposed to stop feeling guilty now?"

"That would be nice."

"Am I supposed to stop feeling guilty right this very second?"

"If you want."

"I'll make you a deal," I said, feeling my face flush with anger. "The day you stop bitching about Stacy and your leg is the day I stop feeling guilty about what happened to David, whether I could have stopped it or not. Is that all right with you?" I got up, stalked to the bedroom, and slammed the door hard enough to make a picture fall off the wall.

* * *

"How long have you been standing there?" I mumbled, squinting against the light from the hallway. Greg was just a vague silhouette in the doorway. 

"Long enough to see that you cuddle the pillows like a stuffed animal," he answered with more than a little mirth in his words, a faint smile curled on his lips. The light hit his eyes at just the right angle, making them look electrified. "May I come in?"

I sat up and switched on the lamp. The 75 watt soft white bulb burned like a searchlight in my sleep eyes. Greg was still standing in the doorway, the bedroom was still the same. I wasn't dreaming. "Are you asking _me_ for permission to come into _your_ bedroom?"

"_Our_ bedroom, remember?"

"It was yours first."

"This isn't a game of 'Finders Keepers'. Quit arguing and give me an answer. My leg is starting to cramp."

"Fine," I sighed. "Get in here before you fall over."

He limped heavily to the bed and flopped on it, rubbing his right leg. He wasn't kidding. Who knows how long he had been standing there watching me sleep. It was a tad bit freaky.

"Is this the part where you apologize?" I asked warily. He was up to something, I just wasn't sure what it was or how much I would suffer for it.

"One, I don't apologize for anything," he answered, grimacing at his sore leg while pulling the bottle of Vicodin out of his pocket. "Two, there is nothing to apologize for."

"I think you owe me an apology."

"You're not getting one."

"What was with the asking permission thing?"

"I'm just fucking around with you."

"Why?"

"Because." He dry-swallowed a pill and looked over at me, waiting for some kind of response.

"You never ask for permission, either," I pointed out. "What brings you in here?"

"It's my bedroom."

"_Our_ bedroom. Now why don't you tell me what you really want?"

"To seal the deal," he said, as if any fool within a ten mile radius should know.

"What deal?"

"The deal _you_ offered me," Greg answered with a huff. "The day I stop bitching about Stacy and my leg is the day you stop feeling guilty about your brother. Do we have a deal?"

"That depends," I said after pondering it over for a minute or two. "Are you ever going to shut up about Stacy and your leg?"

"No. Are you ever going to stop beating yourself up about David?"

"No."

"I'd say we have a deal."

"Do we?"

"Yes, we do, Dr. Wilson."

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't think stewing in your anger all night will do your head much good." He held out his hand.

I shook it. "Deal," I said with a grin.

"Alrighty then. That's settled. But I wouldn't go feeling all pretty inside just yet, Jimmy."

"Why not?"

"Because I ate all your egg rolls and you're buying me a new picture frame."


	30. Chapter 30

Life means having to take the good with the bad. In my case I should be thankful that it balances out. Not all the time, mind you, but usually when I need it to. Like when I need a little help with my migraines and broken arm.

I like the little things about Greg that I get to see and others don't. I like that he worries about me, I like that he stays home to look after me, I like that he'll go out of his way–whatever that means–to make me feel better. And I like being in the warm bed with arms around me. It more than makes up for his rather unpleasant habit of saying whatever happened to be on his mind. Too bad it never lasts for very long. He was up and around again at five in the morning.

"Where are you going?" I mumbled, trying to focus my bleary eyes on the clock. "I thought you were staying home again today."

"I decided to climb Mount Everest today," was his deadpan reply.

"I want to come with you."

"The high altitude will give you a headache. Go back to sleep."

I slept in until ten. I deserved it. I would have slept in later except for the maddening itch under the cast.

"Greg?" I called.

"What?" he called back. He sounded a little irritated. Those idiotic soaps must be coming on.

"I need a coat hanger!" I wanted to add _before I kill someone_, but he was up and in the closet before I had the chance.

It took all my willpower to not jam the semi-sharp coat hanger under the cast. With my luck I'd cut myself and get a nice life threatening gangrene infection. My right hand was about as useful as my right foot, but I finally managed to relieve the itching to where it didn't feel like my arm was being invaded by a million little bugs. It was back to being a basically useless broken limb in a heavy cast.

* * *

"How is he?" A female voice said softly, sounding far away. 

Wait, there aren't any women living in this apartment, unless one of my wives decided to do an abrupt about face and take me back. And sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.

_Who cares_? I thought and pulled the blanket over my ear.

"His migraines are starting to ease up," Greg told the mystery woman. "I think he'll live."

"Where'd he disappear to?" Another voice, this one had an Australian accent. The apartment was being assailed with various co-workers.

Greg's dry response, "I stuffed him under the floorboards."

"Can you pull them up so we can see him?" Chase asked in an equally dry tone, not missing a beat.

"He's sleeping right now," Greg answered. "You wake him up and I'll knock your sorry ass back down under."

"I'm awake," I spoke up, fumbling for the lamp. "I can handle some visitors."

"Your ass is grass, Chase," my friend muttered as he appeared in the bedroom doorway with the young blonde Aussie and Cuddy.

"Hi," the Dean of Medicine smiled and walked over to my rumpled form. "It's nice to see you're feeling better. How's your arm?"

"Itchy," I answered, rubbing my eyes until spots whirled like a blizzard. They faded away and I watched with interest as she pulled a marker out of nowhere and signed my cast. Thanks to Greg's enormous block letters, there wasn't much room left. Cuddy's neat signature found a place by my elbow.

She turned my arm over and blinked. "GH + JW? Oh, how sweet!"

"You're joking," Chase said, looking over her shoulder. "Oh my God, is that for real?"

"Yes, and I didn't write it," I said, staring at the tall man leaning against the dresser.

"Watch it or I'm writing our names in every public bathroom in town," Greg said in all seriousness. "And I'll be sure to include your office number."

"I wouldn't put it past you," I mumbled, then turned back to my visitors. "It's nice of you two to come by even though I look like hell. I appreciate it."

"I always look after my doctors," Cuddy said, "especially when unfortunate circumstances make them patients. I trust Dr. House is taking good care of you."

"Absolutely," I answered.

Chase snickered. "Now why can't he do that with all his patients? What's so hard about that?"

"I'll be more than happy to show you, Chase," House said salaciously. "I'm sure Jimmy and Cuddy here would enjoy the show."

"I wouldn't," the younger doctor said, taking a few steps back, preparing to bolt out the front door in record time and planning an alternate escape route if it became necessary. I could picture him diving head-first through a closed window to escape Greg's clutches. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. Too bad he couldn't see all the sides of Greg the way I could. He wouldn't be so anxious to leave then.


	31. Chapter 31

"It's open!" Greg hollered to the knocking at the front door.

It squeaked open, then the sound of heels clicking on the hardwood floors. Cuddy and Chase looked at the new visitor and grinned. Cameron beamed like a thousand suns when she saw me, even though I looked like the end result of being dragged under a city bus; plus I had a severe case of pillow hair. In her hands was a bouquet of pink tulips.

"It's so good to see you! How are you doing?" she gushed, striding over, dropping the flowers in my lap and giving me a big bear hug.

"Not too hard," I gasped and winced with clenched teeth at her hug, though I hardly meant to. "I'm still sore."

"That's not what you said last night," Greg muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear. Cuddy and I rolled our eyes in sync, Cameron blushed, and Chase had to leave the room to save me from the embarrassment of seeing him laugh his ass off.

"Hope to see you back at the hospital soon," Cameron said with her usual earnestness.

"You miss me that much, Cameron?" I teased.

"You know I do," she answered with a bit of teasing, but not much. A tone of absolute honesty undercut her attempt at a playful banter.

"I didn't know I meant that much to you."

"Now you know," she said with a smile and glanced down at the cast. "GH+JW?"

"House wrote that!" Chase called from the living room and cackled like a loon.

"Really?" The immunologist turned to Greg with eyes as big as garbage can lids.

My friend leered at us and said, "Just letting the world know he's spoken for."

"Why don't you put it up on a billboard?" Cuddy asked, almost serious.

"Can I put it in your backyard?" Greg retorted as Chase, still red-faced, came back into the room. "Or maybe hang a banner in your office? No wait, in the delivery room! And be sure to have 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it' printed underneath. That would be _perfect_."

Our boss leered right back. "Do two hours of clinic duty everyday for a month and I might consider it."

"No thanks," Greg said with an exaggerated scowl. "Sorry, Jimmy, but even an epic romance such as ours has its limits."

"Nice to know where I stand," I said, leaning back into the headboard. I hoped I could make it through the night without another killer migraine. "How much clinic duty would you do for me?"

"None."

"Gee, thanks." I matched his exaggerated scowl with my own.

"Don't mention it," he smirked. "As the great poet Meatloaf once said, 'I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.'"

"Meatloaf never said what 'that' was," the Australian pointed out. "I really don't think he meant clinic duty."

"_I do_." My friend shot Chase a look that told him if he tried to argue, both of them would be there all night trying to change each others minds until they were blue in the face.

"Enough!" Cuddy broke in and thankfully shut them up. "Nobody is putting up billboards or banners and who cares what Meatloaf was singing about? And we know you're queer, so you can stop pounding it into our skulls. But anyone in this room is more than welcome to a months worth of clinic duty." She turned to me. "Dr. Wilson, can you give me a rough estimate of when you think you might be able to come back?"

"I'm shooting for less than three days," I answered. "But don't quote me on that."

"Keep me up-to-date and don't come back until you're ready," she said. "I don't want to see you in a hospital bed again."

"Me neither," Greg declared. "Those things aren't big enough for both of us. Plus those paper-thin hospital gowns are _so_ drafty."

"I'll give you a call every morning until then," I said. "You can count on it."

I winced again, not at another hug from Cameron, but from the throbbing that was starting to pound its forward through my skull. Too many people, too much light, too many voices all at once. Unless I got some medication and some dark and some quiet real quick, this migraine was going to make the others look like one of those weird head-rushes from eating ice cream too fast. I squeezed my eyes shut and it seemed everyone noticed.

"What is it, Jimmy?" Greg asked with one hundred percent concern, walking over to the bed.

"Migraine's coming," I muttered. "Sorry, I appreciate you all coming to see me, but I need some quiet, please..."

"It's perfectly all right," Cuddy replied, motioning the other two out the door. Cameron gave me a quick good-bye kiss on the forehead. "Look after him, Dr. House," Cuddy added sternly.

Greg shot her an irritated glare. "You _don't_ have to tell me."

"Take care, Dr. Wilson," Chase told me. A few seconds later I heard the front door open and shut. The sudden quiet in the apartment was wonderful.

"How bad is it?" Greg asked softly while shaking a pill into my hand.

"My head is going to split in a minute," I replied and swallowed the pill, praying it would stay down. If it didn't, I was in for a long night of pure misery.


	32. Chapter 32

"I think the Oncology department is going to have live without their fearless leader for a few more days. Less than three days is being a wee bit optimistic," Greg told me stoically from his place at the edge of the bed. He was probably right, but that didn't mean I had to like what he had to say just because it was the truth. The truth can hurt. Both of us know that little gold nugget of wisdom all too well. "It wouldn't kill you to be a little more pessimistic once in a great while. You'd see the world a lot more clearly."

"I have a job to do," I sounded like 90-pound weakling trying to talk tough to the muscle-bound biker about to kick his ass. My voice betrayed my real state of mind, a mind which hadn't been functioning quite the same since it slammed into the concrete. Some strange thought flittered for a moment–I wondered if I would be having this conversation if it had been just an everyday migraine, not a knocked-down-the-stairs induced one.

"You heard Cuddy. Take as long as you need. Why are you in such a rush?"

"I can't stay here any longer and do nothing." I managed to focus on him pretty well through the haze of the migraine. Now I honestly know what pain is. My head felt like it was melting from the inside out. Even the shingles didn't hurt this bad. Soon my brains would dribbling out of my ears.

"You can't do anything at the hospital while you have a blinding migraine, either," he said.

"Goddammit, I have a ton of work to do–"

"Your work can wait."

"I need to get back to work."

"You don't _need_ to do anything right now. You're not going anywhere. You're white as a ghost and probably can't even walk in a straight line. Now shut the hell up and go to sleep."

The bitter anger at being flat on my back and so fucking useless was making my head hurt even worse. I hated feeling useless almost as much as I hated being alone. My patients depended on me. I need to be there for them. I can't do that from the bed. "I have a department to run–"

"Unless every other warm body in your department bought their medical diploma off the Internet, I'd say they can live without you for the time being."

"It's _my_ department! I _have_ to be there!" I spoke too loud and the noise rang in my ears, bringing a fresh bolt of pain that would have knocked me to the ground had I been standing up.

"To do what?" Greg said sharply. His decibel level matched mine and it wasn't making my head feel any better. "Kill a patient by prescribing the wrong dose of medication because you can't focus? Is that what you _have_ to do so fucking badly in _your_ precious department? Does the word 'malpractice' mean anything to you? Jimmy, you're not leaving this apartment until you're good and ready, and I'm going to make sure of that."

"How? Are you going to put bars on all the windows?"

"That's an idea," he said humorlessly. "I'm not above tying you to the bed if I have to, and believe me, you won't enjoy it."

I glared at him. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, really? I wouldn't bet _my_ freedom on that, Jimmy, but I'm more than happy to bet _yours_. I will tie you down if I have to and I don't have to be double-dared. I know where you're ties are and I'm more than willing to use them. Are you up to chewing a leg off to make good your daring escape? It might take your mind off the migraines for while."

"I _can't _stay here! I _can't_!"

"Why? Is there some weird cancer quota you have to meet this month? Do you get a bonus for every breast cancer patient who goes into remission? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you trust the other doctors in your department?"

I blinked. "Yes, I do."

"They can do there jobs."

"Of course."

"Then you have nothing to worry about. Neither do your patients."

"_No_, I have to be–"

"Does your head hurt?" Greg asked innocently.

"Yes," I muttered. "Yes, it hurts."

"How bad? On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?"

"A ten. It's killing me. It was an eleven but the pills are kicking in."

"Would you let me try to work with a migraine that bad?"

"You already have," I answered. "But we weren't together then. If it had been up to me I wouldn't have let you."

"All right. I think my point has been made. Now get some rest and let your pills do their job. If you want to continue this argument later when your head isn't caving in, just let me know."

I sank back into the pillow, knowing I had lost this round. I always lost arguments with him. I knew him better than anyone. I know how he thinks. By now I should able to anticipate his moves. I should have won this argument, migraine or not. It was so unfair.


	33. Chapter 33

That was the closest I had ever come to having a full-blown panic attack. Between my brother, my less-than-welcome acquaintance with the garage stairwell, my broken arm, my migraines and my utter and complete uselessness, I'm surprised I didn't crack a hell of a lot sooner. Now I was face to face with the fear that someone else will be moving into my office during my absence. I don't know where that came from. All I knew was that it didn't want to leave. I sincerely believe that if my head wasn't hurting so much right then I would hyperventilated until I passed out.

"Cuddy is a lot of things but a stone-cold heartless bureaucrat isn't one of them," Greg was saying even though I wasn't really listening. "She wouldn't have gone out of her way to visit you here if she was planning on giving you the boot."

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it's not working." Cuddy could have presented me with the winning lottery ticket and I still would have told her to come back when I was feeling better.

"I'm just telling you the truth. Whether or not you end up feeling better is beside the point. Cuddy saw you when they brought you in. She looked at your X-rays. She knows just how miserable and hurting you are and won't hand over your job to someone else just because you need an extra day or two to recover."

"I'm _supposed_ to be there for my patients. That's what I do..." I continued to protest as if arguing about it enough would somehow get my sorry ass back to the hospital in the morning. Then my pounding head couldn't take anymore arguing or talking or feeling like a worthless blob of protoplasm. I curled up and buried my head under a pillow. "My fucking head still hurts. I need some quiet."

"'Kay," he said. "Get some rest. Have a nice dream or two about Carmen Electra and a bottle of chocolate sauce. Everything will be fine in the morning."

"Greg?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you stay here with me for a while?"

"How long is a while?"

"Until I fall asleep. Please."

"What for?" he asked even as he was walking around the bed.

"Misery loves company," I muttered and managed an anemic chuckle.

"You and I are the experts on that subject," he said, carefully climbing into the bed. "I'm not one to say no to such an intrepid request." He patted my shoulder. "Unless you're planning to hibernate for the winter why don't you get your ugly mug out from under the pillow."

I winced as moving brought on a fresh round of anguish and queasiness. "Greg," I muttered, coming back up to the surface and resting my head in the crook of his neck, trying to keep as inert as possible. "Please be quiet or my head is going to explode."

"That would be messy." He had to get in the last word, of course.

Greg did manage to keep quiet and lightly stroked the back of my neck. For the longest time all I heard was my own ragged breathing, which finally smoothed out into slow and even breaths. I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep, I just knew that Greg was with me the whole time.

* * *

The first sip of coffee was wonderful, sending a much needed jolt to my weary bones. After the second sip I was able to keep my eyes open. With the third sip I felt alive. The headaches were on hold. My face didn't look like the ass end of a dump truck anymore. Maybe I could get back to work in three days after all. 

Greg eyed me suspiciously. "Did you sleep well, Dr. Misery?"

"I did, actually." Another gulp of coffee. I could feel the caffeine travel to my nerve endings, waking them up from their unscheduled vacation. "Thank you."

"Why did you want me to stay with you last night?"

"I needed some...consolation."

"Consolation? Like a prize or something? Did you come in second at the Princeton Plainsboro Oncology Beauty Pageant and not tell me?"

"I needed to hear that everything was going to be okay and I wanted to hear you say it."

"Why me?"

"Your opinion is the only one that matters right now."

"My opinion doesn't necessarily equal the absolute truth."

"Maybe not, but you told me what I wanted to hear."

"Does it matter that I said it because of your migraine. I would have said something different if you just had a cold or something."

"Well, you stayed with me just the same."

"That I did," Greg smiled from across the table. "So...did you and Carmen have fun last night?"

"I forgot the chocolate sauce and she was mad at me for a while." I smiled back.

"What did you do to rectify the situation?"

"I let her tie me up with my ties."

"_Kinky_."

"You should know." I smirked into my coffee.

"I don't. You haven't let me tie you up yet."

"Can you wait a few more days?" I peered anxiously over the mug.

"We'll see," he replied salaciously, meaning I'd better watch my back "Remind me to pick up some chocolate sauce the next time we go to the store."


	34. Chapter 34

No chocolate sauce in the apartment and my ties were still in the closet. That's something I wouldn't be able to handle at the moment, much to his chagrin...and mine. I swear, if I saw one or the other in his hands, I'd run screaming out the front the door. There was a time and a place for everything, and I wasn't really in the mood for some otherwise yummy chocolate sauce making a sticky mess in the cast.

Another lazy day. No sign of a migraine, and if I could make it through today without one then I could finally get back to work. I was getting restless. The need to do _something_ was building. And building. And building a little more with each passing second. But there was nothing to do right then and there, so I had to stuff the need back down in case I got too riled up and triggered another round of blinding pain. That I didn't need. Not today, not tomorrow, never ever again.

We made ourselves comfy on the sofa, with some chips and soda and a blanket tossed over us. We gorged ourselves shamelessly, and when those ridiculous soaps came on I whined shamelessly. _Please, not today_. Even a monster truck marathon would be better than this crap. He ignored me and turned up the volume. Sigh, this was going to be a long day. I leaned into his shoulder and closed my eyes. A faint chuckle drifted down. He loved torturing me almost as much as _General Hospital_. His fingers ran through my hair and suddenly I found the soaps almost tolerable. It was only a few hours and the pain they caused would only be mildly psychological and completely temporary. Tomorrow morning I wouldn't even remember the names of the characters.

Then I suddenly remembered something I had been wanting to ask him. Just one of those situations when you want to remember a little thing that slipped your mind by thinking of something else entirely.

"What did you mean when you said 'My spirit is broken, not my leg'?" I asked.

Greg choked on his soda, then turned to me, his eyes wide and surprised. "What the hell brought _that_ on?" he sputtered incredulously.

"It just popped into my head." It was the truth, more or less, but that didn't make it sound any less lame.

"Of all the silly and stupid and downright nasty things I've ever said, you remember that?" He thought I had forgotten all about it or just didn't remember it like I didn't remember being knocked down the stairs for the first few days.

"Well, why did you say that?" I matched his confused expression with one of my own, ignoring his question. "It was so...weird, and I've been meaning to ask you about it, but between the migraines and–"

"Don't worry about it," he interrupted with a stony expression. "Forget I ever said anything."

It was my turn to be incredulous. "No. No way. There's no way I can forget about it now. What did you mean, Greg?"

"Nothing."

"Not hardly," I said, making a big show of pointing out the obvious. "You said it and you wanted me to hear it. What did you mean by it? Why do you think your spirit is broken?"

"Because it is," he answered simply, as if that should be good enough to end the discussion.

It wasn't. "I don't get it," I said.

"And you never will," he replied tersely, looking at the floor. "Jimmy, just drop it."

Like hell I was. He didn't want to talk, but there was no way I could let this go, not now. "Tell me."

"Why should I?" He turned back to me, his glare on the frosty side.

"Because I want to know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. You wouldn't have said anything if you didn't want me know. So tell me." I leaned back into the sofa and waited. I'd wait all day if I had to, and he knew it.

I guess that's why he tried to get up and leave. The blanket tangled around his legs and gave me the half-second I needed to climb over his lap and pin him in place. There wasn't going to be any escape from this conversation. Strangely, he seemed resigned to that fact. The threats, squirming, fight and obscenities never materialized.

Greg sat for a while, avoiding my eyes but avoiding an answer, just thinking about how he would word it. "I've changed a lot over the years and not always for the better. Hells bells, that's a goddamn lie, every way I've changed has been for the worst. People think they can fix me. They can't. I've been broken for far too long."

He was telling the truth, but I wasn't about to say it to his face. I kept quiet and waited for him to go on.

"Despite the show I put on for you and everyone else," he continued in a calm tone, "I don't really like the person I've turned into. I wish I could go back to being the person I once was. I found him a lot easier to live with."

I place my hand his cheek and brushed my thumb along his stubble. He flinched a bit but didn't push it away.

"Remember that night a few weeks ago when you found me pacing around in here because my leg was hurting?" he asked.

"Yes." Not that either us would ever forget it.

"My leg had never hurt worse than it did that night."

"Why was it so bad?" I asked carefully.

"I don't know. All I do know is that for the first time I seriously thought about how tired I was of living in this broken, pain-wracked body of mine. I was over it. Enough was enough. If you hadn't been here, Jimmy, I don't know what I would have done..."


	35. Chapter 35

I don't think I need to say that Greg's little confession knocked the wind out of me. My blood froze. My stomach tied in a knot. My head began to throb again.

For a brief, bizarre moment I thought he was playing a joke. It wasn't a joke. It would have been the sickest joke ever played on me or anyone else, and even the notorious Dr. House had his limits. This was him laying bare his soul, letting me see every single scratch and scar, letting me hear the stories behind them, letting me see just how far down the pain and misery went. It was pitch black down there, no end in sight.

"You're serious?" I asked, and watched him nod in agreement. "How serious?"

"Serious enough to think that it sounded like a damned good idea," he answered calmly, like he was talking about a particularly entertaining monster truck show, though I could detect an undercurrent of anxiety in his voice. "The best damned idea I'd had in a long, long time. I had reached my breaking point. I couldn't take it anymore and just wanted it to end."

"Why, Greg? Why then?"

"I dunno...," he said, trailing off in an almost dreamlike fashion, like he wasn't really here; like he was watching it all from a safe distance. "I can't explain it. It just...happened. I just couldn't stand the thought of suffering through another night of _that_."

"H-how...how...," I stuttered, swallowed the lump in my throat with an audible gulp, then regained my composure. My hands were starting to shake. The nervous breakdown would have to wait until later. Right now I just wanted some answers. "How close were you to going through with it?"

"You don't want to know."

I probably didn't and decided not to push it or I'd never sleep again. "What were you going to do?"

"Finish off my bottle of pills."

"You could have taken them before I got home. Why didn't you?"

"It didn't occur to me until just before you walked in. Plus, you got home earlier than usual."

"The pills mi-might..they might..." I stammered as my voice began to crack, and choked back the onslaught of emotions that were fighting their way to the surface. "They might not have...given you what you wanted."

"That was a chance I was willing to take," he said in that same calm voice. "When I was pacing up and down the living room in agony, it suddenly hit me that I could make all the hurting go away, but at the last second I couldn't do it."

How could he stay so damned calm in this situation? It made me want to slap some sense into him, more than once.

"Why not?" I asked shakily.

"You," he told me, like I should have known all along. I did know. I wanted to hear him say it.

I raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

"Do I need another reason, Jimmy?" my friend said with an unamused smirk. "The second you walked through the door I knew there was no way in the world I could do that to you."

He was using his favorite defense mechanism–a blasé attitude. The attitude that cushions him against the anger and frustration he feels at being crippled. Greg House, the man who hates everything and everyone. Him against the world. But it was becoming so obvious I don't how or why he even thought he could pull it off for another second. The anxiety in his voice had risen a notch or two. He was probably closer to breaking than I was. He was scared to death that he had let himself get that low, and was even more scared that he wouldn't be able to stop himself if it ever happened again.

"So, you're saying we're having this conversation because I got home early?" My jaw twitched.

"Maybe. Maybe not," he replied with an irritatingly fake nonchalance.

"Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" I said, the anger starting to rise. I dug my nails into my palm to stop myself from giving him a hand-shaped bruise across the face. "If I had arrived home twenty minutes later would I have found your corpse on the kitchen floor? Goddammit, will you give me a straight answer–"

"Like what–a yes or a no?" His glare turned hard and icy. "Which answer will make you shut the hell up and let me finish?"

"Greg–"

"I was ready to swallow an entire bottle of pills, that doesn't mean I actually had the guts to do it. I guess what I'm trying to say it that when you came home I had a flesh and blood reminder of why I shouldn't consider taking such drastic actions. Doing that to you, after everything we've been through together, that would make the pain in my leg look a like a paper cut, a pain I can't let you go through. Sure, you'd try to justify me six ways to Sunday to the rest of the world, but I knew that you would never forgive me for taking the easy way out."

I didn't say anything and, for whatever reason that was running through his head at the moment, he didn't seem to like that, as if he took my silence as some kind of condemnation.

"The truth hurts, Jimmy. You know that as well as I do. You would never forgive me and you know it."

"You're right," I said quietly. "It's the truth. I would never forgive you."

"I didn't think so," he muttered. "That's why my spirit is broken. I let the pain beat me. I put up a good fight, but in the end it wasn't good enough. Is that answer straight enough for you?"

"No," I said as he looked up, confused. "You can stop yourself from swallowing a bottle of pills for me, but why can't you stop for yourself?"

Silence. He stared at the front door.

"Answer me, Greg."

"I'm not better than the pain," Greg said, his eyes turning red. "But you are."


	36. Chapter 36

All it took was one well-remembered out-of-place comment and I realized just how close I came to losing the best friend I ever had. It was scary, very scary. The only thing I wasn't sure of was who it scared more–him or me.

Greg House was not a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve and spent a great deal of time keeping them in check. He would deny to the bitter end that something was wrong. Even now he had only brought up his frightening close-call because I demanded an answer. Well, I got my answer. Oh boy, did I ever get it. Yet he tried, and failed spectactularly, to make it sound like a brief error in judgement. This had nothing to do with judgment and everything to do with a pain that no drug could touch, the pain he couldn't deal with anymore. Greg was beyond hitting bottom. If he reached up he might be lucky to touch bottom.

He wanted to be held, so I held him. Usually it's the other way around, he likes to put his arm around my shoulder or wrap himself around me when he thinks I'm asleep. Today everything was an exception to Greg's seemingly spur-of-the-moment rules. All the checked emotions came roaring to the surface, he sobbed into my chest, trembling under my hands. I shed a few tears with him and for him.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. Maybe I would have been better off not knowing. Then again, he wanted me to know. He just couldn't come out and say it. He was holding on for now, but how long before he reaches another breaking point?

_I'm not better than the pain. But you are._

I was about to find out.

Eventually the raging flood within him began slow and calm. My shirt was soaked with his tears.

His breathing was hitched and ragged before finally smoothing out to something that resembled a normal, steady rhythm. He had to be drained, so I didn't bother with trying to talk with him just yet; I let him have all the time he needed to collected his nerves and his thoughts. I passed the time threading my fingers through his hair and trying to figure out what the hell to do next.

The television continued to play to the quiet room. _The Young and the Restless_ was coming on. Both of us did a splendid job of ignoring it.

I heard mumbling. It was Greg. I asked him to repeat it.

"I don't deserve someone like you," he said, his face still half-buried against my chest like he was trying to hide, making his words jumbled and muffled.

That threw me for a loop, as if I needed another cryptic comment to puzzle over on top of everything else.

"Why do you say that?" I asked carefully, continued to play with his hair as if everything was just fine and dandy, neither of us having a care in the world. Yeah, right. If things ever got back to normal again we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves or each other.

"Because it's the truth." He turned his head to the side, but wouldn't look up at me.

"How so?"

"Anyone else would have left a long time ago without bothering to say good-bye and I wouldn't have blamed them in the least."

"Stacy left without saying good-bye, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to leave, Greg? Is that what you're trying to say?" I held my breath while waiting for his answer.

"No, I want to know why you stayed."

I relaxed and breathed again. If he had said _yes_ I would have had a complete meltdown right there on the sofa and I would have taken him with me. "I want to be here. You know that."

"I suppose," he said with some trepidation, like he couldn't quite make himself believe it. "Don't you have a breaking point, Jimmy?"

"I'm sure I do." I thought about my little meltdown scenario and decided that he didn't need to ever know about that. He had enough on his mind already. "Everybody does. I just haven't found it yet." I knew what my breaking point was, it came packaged in a simple yes or no answer to a question about me leaving, but he didn't need to know that, either. Right now it was best to let him talk and try to figure out how to get him to accept the help he so badly needed. My breaking point hardly mattered.

"Liar," he said, but wouldn't elaborate on what he really meant by that. "You're such a lousy goddamn liar."

"Sorry."

"Save your fucking apologies. They're as bad as your lying." A few silent minutes ticked by before he said, "Aren't you going to say it?"

"What?" I knew exactly what he wanted me to say, but I wanted him to make the acknowledgment first.

"You know damn good and well what."

"No. Tell me."

"Fucking liar," he grumbled and sat up. His eyes were red, puffy and tired. "At least you're always good at telling the truth."

"Always?" I questioned.

"Always," my friend said with complete sincerity. "That's something I can always count on, especially when I really need to hear it."


	37. Chapter 37

"You need to get some help," I said, doing an utterly amazing job of keeping my emotions under control.

"What kind of help?" he asked.

"The kind of special help reserved for suicidal cripples," I said, purposely trying to piss him off. Though given what he had been through this afternoon, I'd have to say it would take a hell of a lot more than a few hastily scattered words to get and keep his attention.

He was sitting calmly in the corner of the sofa, his head tilted back and eyes closed like he had fallen asleep on a lazy afternoon. I looked him over and was pretty much amazed that the quiet unshaven exterior I was sitting next to could hide such a crashing symphony of pain and hurt within. But every scar on Greg House, inside and out, had a story and I was going to stick around to hear every last one even if it killed me.

"Thank you, Dr. Obvious," Greg answered tersely, though not tersely enough. He may have wanted to hear the truth, but that doesn't mean he would listen to it. His defenses were coming back up and I got the distinct feeling that he had no control over it. After years and years of challenging the system and authority figures, bringing up the wall around him was second nature, like breathing and blinking.

"I'm serious, Greg."

"I know. Aren't you always?"

"I said I'm serious, and I mean it."

"I heard you the first time, and I never said you weren't."

"You need therapy, a shrink–"

"A shrink? Just what the hell can a shrink do for my leg?" He laughed, a flat, empty laugh that made my skin crawl.

"This is about more than just your leg."

"Is it? Well, peel me off the ceiling, I never thought of _that_! Unless a shrink can fix my leg by boring it to death, I'll just be wasting my time. Those idiots are as trustworthy as a used car salesman. All those quacks do is ask if you ever wanted to screw your mommy and tell you that you hate your daddy because he didn't get you that puppy you really really wanted. The answers are _no fucking way _and my dad was allergic to dogs so I couldn't have one anyway. I don't need to shell out two hundred dollars an hour for that, thank you very much."

"This is about your state of mind. You're depressed. You have been for a long time. And half an hour ago you were sobbing your eyes out and admitting that you thought about killing yourself."

"_Thought_, that's all I did," he said in the strange, dreamlike voice again, like he was trying to remember what he had for lunch yesterday. If he pushed himself far enough away from everything that was tormenting him it couldn't hurt him anymore. As far as he was concerned, the whole episode was quirk in his existence and not some kind of turning point. It made me want to scream until his eardrums and my vocal cords burst.

"You said you were ready to swallow the rest of your pills," I said, pointing out the obvious once again. It seemed to be the only thing I was good at anymore.

"As you can clearly see, I didn't go through with it."

"_This time_," I countered sharply. Something in my voice, probably my barely concealed agitation, caught his attention and he looked over at me. "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Am I supposed to just brush it off and forget about it? What happens next time, huh? What happens the next time?"

"Who says there has to be a next time?"

"I do."

"May I ask why?"

"No, you many not. By the way, I might not come home early the next time it happens."

"That's very pessimistic of you, Jimmy. I always had you pegged as a glass-is-half-full kind of guy."

"I say there's going to be a next time," I seethed, wishing he stop trying to make a joke of everything. "It could be tomorrow or next week or ten years from now, but it's going to happen. You know and I know it. It's not a matter of _if_, it's a matter of _when_."

"And I say that I had every reason to want to end it all that night. I was in hell and for some reason I couldn't take it anymore. But as I said before, I couldn't do it because of you, and I shouldn't let one moment of weakness lead me to such drastic actions. As long as you're around, I have reason to keep my head on straight."

"I'd like to agree with you, but I can't. You need some help, more help than I can provide."

"Well," he began with a sad smile, "we'll see, won't we?"


	38. Chapter 38

"Shrinks wasted their so-called education," Greg said with a thin smirk.

"How so?" I had to ask. I would have anyway. It was easier to let him say what was on his mind at the moment, whether it be suicidal tendencies or his contempt for the rest of the human race. I'd steer the conversation back. There was no escaping it, and he knew it. Just because he confessed his suicidal thoughts didn't mean he was going to do something about them. For all I knew he had thought of suicide before, he just wasn't telling me.

"There's no need to spend tens of the thousands of dollars to mess with someone's head. I do that every day for free."

We were still sitting on the sofa as the soaps played out to an inattentive audience. Finding about some bimbo's evil twin or surprise pregnancy was the last thing on our minds right now.

"I can't argue with that, but you should take a step back and–"

"And _what_? I'll tell you _what_. Okay, I'll admit it just for _you_. I'm miserable. I'm depressed. I have been for years, but now it's time to do something about it, isn't that right? I'd say I'm the most pitiful excuse of human being to walk on two legs, except I _can't_ walk on two legs."

"Is that really how you see yourself?"

He paused and let out a despondent sigh. "Sometimes, I guess. I don't know."

"I wish you would reconsider."

"There's nothing to reconsider. The answer is 'no'." Then just loud enough for me to hear, he muttered, "I should have kept my goddamn mouth shut."

"You need–"

"No."

"Would you just listen–"

"No! Didn't you hear me the first time? What is it about the word 'no' you don't understand? You can shut up about it now. I'm through discussing it." He sat brooding at his end of the sofa, his eyes still red and puffy.

"I'm not," I said slowly, the resolve in my words was heavy and Greg felt smack down on him like a cold wet blanket, then smack down on him again for good measure. He was going to listen to me one way or another, even if it meant both us of began to kick and scream.

He smirked again, this time it was acrimonious. Now it was time for his second favorite defense mechanism–getting on my nerves and getting under my skin until I bled. "You're just loving this, aren't you?"

"What, that my best friend is hurting and miserable?"

"Your need to be needed."

"Even if said need exists, what about it?"

"Nothing indulges that like looking after a cripple."

"The fact that you're crippled is beside the point."

"Is it? Is that the real reason your marriages didn't last, your wives just didn't _need_ you anymore?"

"My wives divorced me because I cheated on them."

"Ah, it wasn't the wives, it was the all the cute little candy-stripers and big strapping male nurses that needed the handsome doctor."

"I guess."

"There's no guessing about it. Your wives certainly didn't _need_ a cheating queer bastard of husband around–"

"_Shut up_!" Those two words come out like a new razor, quick and sharp. They had the desired effect, he shut up and looked away, knowing he had gone too far yet again.

_One of these days I'm going to say something you won't get over. Then where will I be?_

"You need some help," I resumed as if nothing had happened. Pain had turned him into a vicious monster again, a different kind of pain, but that didn't make hurt any less. "Please, _please_, will you at least think about it? I'll pay for it."

"I bet you will," he mumbled. "Save your money, Jimmy. Therapy is out of the question."

"Why? Because the truth hurts?"

"More than you'll ever know."

I knew he'd resist. He wouldn't be caught dead on a therapist's couch. It was time to bring out the big guns. "You're getting some help."

"No, I'm not. Unlike you, I don't need anything except some Vicodin." He tipped two pills into his mouth and washed them down with his now flat soda.

"Would you please get some help? For me?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. They were flat and suspicious. "Is this what it's come to? You're laying a guilt trip on me?"

"Yes," I said and closed my eyes for a moment, wishing that it didn't have to come to this at all. Not at all.


	39. Chapter 39

"You're pulling out all the stops today," he said with a hint of amusement, not looking at me. "You only do that on very special occasions. I take it you mean business."

He was right about that. "Yes, I do."

"Apparently. You pulling a guilt trip on me. That's so _you_. The good brother, son and friend, always trying to do the right thing, except when it comes to your wives." I let that one slide. "Of course, everyone else on this giant blue marble called Earth assumes that I'm not capable of an emotion called _guilt_. Well, we all know what happens when you _assume_, right?"

"You make an ass out of you and me," I answered.

"Correctamundo, dear Jimmy."

"You wouldn't have it any other way, having everyone else assume you have no guilt."

That got a chuckle out of him. "All the better to keep them on their toes. Let them know that I'm capable of anything." He was, but I wasn't about to pipe up with that little fact right now. "Should I go pack for your guilt trip now? Do I need some suntan lotion and my passport? What time does the plane leave?"

"Enough already," I snapped. "I never thought I would have to use a guilt trip on you. I didn't want to. I really didn't. It was a last resort, you stubborn bastard."

"I've driven you to a last resort? Damn, I must have rattled you something fierce."

"Greg," I said with a shaky, exasperated sigh. I don't know how he did it, I really don't. This man was a sobbing wreck less than an hour ago and now he was acting like he simply forgot to return my phone call. "You were talking about killing yourself, about finishing off your pills. I'm not about to let your confession of suicidal thoughts just roll of my back."

"You're not going to let it roll off Cuddy's either."

"No, not in a million years."

"I didn't think so. The fact that you have no proof isn't going to stop you from running to Mommy."

"She knows you just as well as I do. Cuddy has begging you to go to therapy for years," I said pointedly. "Proof or not, she'll believe me and that's all that matters."

"Is it?"

"You damn well know it is. If you think I'm annoying you now, just wait until Cuddy starts harping on you."

"Christ...," he muttered, and I could almost see the visions of our boss in full nagging mode swirling inside his head. He'd lock himself in a padded room just to get away from her. "That's quite an appetizing choice you're leaving me with–being guilt tripped to death by you or being nagged to death by Cuddy."

"This is hardly an appetizing situation," I said. "Choose whichever is the lesser of two evils for you,"

"They're both equally evil."

"That very well may be, but you still have a choice to make. You're not leaving this sofa until you do."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise." Before he could react, I jumped up, grabbed his cane, and tossed it into the hall.

The clattering seemed unusually loud, or maybe it was because I was high-strung at the moment and every sound, touch and smell was heightened, threatening to overwhelm and crush me.

He glanced into the hallway; nothing to see since the cane was out of view, then at me. "You _prick_," Greg hissed, his face turning beet red with anger.

"Choose, Greg." I said with remarkable coolness.

"Why should I? What's in it for me, besides being badgered into oblivion and a brainwashing?"

"You're not getting your cane back until you do."

"Fine." He looked me over with a hard, steely gaze. If looks could kill... "I've made my choice. I choose not to choose."

"You can't do that."

"Watch me."

"You have two choices. Only two. One or the other. Pick one."

"My choice has been made. Are you going to go running to Cuddy and tattle about that too?" Greg spat, and frowned when he saw my face contort with a twist of great annoyance, worry, dread, and about a thousand other things. "Wait...wait, I didn't mean for it to come out that way. What I meant to tell you was if I say I'll think about it, that I'll honestly think about it, will you back off for a while?"

I tossed that back and forth in my head for a few moments. "That depends," I replied stonily. "What exactly are your terms?"

"Just give me a few days to think it over, give me some space, and don't go running to Cuddy."

"You'll just say you don't want to do it. You've already made up your mind, so the answer is no."

"For Chrissakes, Jimmy!," he exploded. "I'm not sitting here with a noose around my neck or in the kitchen pulling a Sylvia Plath–"

"You still have your pills. It's a full bottle, isn't it?"

He went on as if I hadn't spoken. "That happened weeks ago. I know you've been kind of out of it for the last few days, but not enough to be blind to the fact that I've devoted myself to taking care of you. I'm very much alive, and I'm planning on keeping it that way for the next few decades."

"Is that a promise?" I asked warily.

"No, it's a threat."

"What happens when your leg tortures you again?"

"Who says it's going to?"

"You and I both know it will. What about your leg, Greg?"

"What about it?"

"What happens when it hurts again? What will you do?"

"You're not going anywhere are you?" Greg asked. I shook my head. "We'll deal with that when the time comes," he replied stoically. "Now go get my fucking cane."


	40. Chapter 40

I got him his cane and he didn't let go of it for over an hour. I would have been beaten senseless if I tried to take it away again. Not being in the mood for any more bruises, I kept a safe distance.

He was through talking for the time being and turned back to his soaps. When he had something to say he'd say it, until then I would just end up having the same argument all over again and accomplish absolutely nothing. So I gave him what he wanted to begin with, some space and some time to think. I settled back into the sofa and watched TV.

The ridiculous soap operas bored me to tears. I glanced down at my cast. GH + JW. That amused me to no end, though I couldn't really say why. Maybe it was because nobody will really believe that Greg wrote it. I was going to have to save that when the cast finally came off.

The afternoon waned on. It was too nice a day to waste on fighting and dwelling on our misery. The soaps finally gave way to _City Confidential _and _American_ _Justice_. I drifted off, hearing bits and pieces of the shows and not remembering a damn word three seconds later, but something strange kept me from falling completely asleep. A weird, nagging feeling. It was the feeling of being watched.

I opened my eyes and looked over. Greg's bright blue eyes were staring into my dark brown eyes.

There was something in those eyes of his that not too many people get to see. Of course, they don't know it's there, so they don't know to look. Not that Greg really minds. All they see is a pitiless merciless bastard. Too bad. That's their loss. Greg doesn't really mind that either. If they could only see what I was seeing–a man full of regret, contrition, remorse, and any other synonym that went along with those last few words. They'd probably die from shock.

We just stared at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence. He broke first, but it wasn't the silence. He held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me over to his side of the sofa.

"You worry too much," Greg muttered, playing with my hair as I rested my head against his shoulder.

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"It is when it's nonstop. You can give it a rest every now and then, you know."

"Why should I?"

"Because I said so."

"When my best friend talks about suicide, I tend too worry. Call me crazy, but I do."

"Okay, you're crazy. And for the last time, I only _thought_ about it once. And I have my arm around the best reason in world of why I should never think about it again. So you can quit your worrying."

"I'm not going to."

"I really should have kept my goddamn mouth shut..."

"I seem to remember you telling me that you were worried about me not too long ago," I pointed out.

"I can't deny that. I _was_ worried about you."

"Is it so different with you?"

"Yes it is, as a matter of fact. Seeing you looking like a reject from a _Friday the 13th _film with a bone sticking out of your arm is enough to bring out the worry in anyone. Now that it's obvious that you're going to make a full and complete recovery, I can turn the worry down a notch or ten. Unlike you, I don't feel the need to wear concern on my sleeve for all the world to see."

"No, you just wear your sarcasm and misanthropy," I said. "That's not going to stop me from worrying about you, sleeve or no sleeve."

"I didn't think so," Greg mumbled testily. "You'd put your worry on a fucking billboard if you could."

"I'm telling Cuddy about it."

"Be my guest."

"I'm telling her everything."

"Tell her what you want, Jimmy," he said nonchalantly. "You're going to anyway."

I sat up and looked him square in the eye. "What are _you_ going to tell her?"

"Nothing she doesn't already know–My leg hurts, I'm a drug addict, I'm a prick, she's a nag with a nice rack, and no matter how much she believes you, you can't prove a damn thing. Your brilliant plan has a minor flaw. Unless you have a camera hidden in your shorts, the only thing you and Cuddy can do is talk me into a coma. So go ahead, I could use a few more days of rest."

He was right, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that I knew that.

"Are you going to swallow your bottle of pills?"

"One at a time. That's how it usually goes. Sometimes I swallow two when I'm feeling frisky."

"Are you going to take the whole bottle at once?

"I don't have any plans to do such a thing at the moment."

"Does your leg hurt?"

"I'm nice and stoned right now, so the answer is no."

"Are you going to think about suicide again?"

"I don't know."

That's not the answer I wanted to hear. "Greg, I can't just forget about this."

"Neither can I."

That gave me a pause. "What did you say?"

"Neither can I, Jimmy. You seem to forget that part. There's no way I can ever forget it either. My spirit is broken, and I really need your help in putting it back together, and we don't need Cuddy for that."


	41. Chapter 41

"Just how do you plan on doing that?" I asked.

"I don't know," Greg answered with a frown. "I was hoping you would have an idea or two."

"I don't have any right now."

"Lot of good that does me."

"I don't know if I'll have any at all."

"Some friend you are," he muttered, then turned back to the television and put his feet on the table. "By the way, I'd rather you didn't tell Cuddy or anyone else about my broken spirit thing. I don't want their help, I want yours and yours alone."

"Your secret is safe with me."

"Damn well better be." He turned to me and smiled, then pulled me closer. "Having you around is good for me. I mean that. I really do. I feel better already."

His wild mood swings always made me feel uneasy, mostly because they usually appeared out of thin air. Plus, he could swing back again just as quickly. I kept my guard up and put on a smile of my own just for show. "I'm glad I could help."

"I always knew you were good for something, Jimmy. Not just good. Maybe I can even call it _great_. Anyway, I just didn't realize how important that something was."

"Thanks...I guess."

"That's a huge fucking compliment coming from me."

"Compliments aren't something you hand out very often."

"No, I don't. That's because most people don't deserve them. You damn well better appreciate it."

"I know, Greg, and I do appreciate it." I entwined my fingers in his to prove it. "There's something I need you to do for me."

"Oh no. This better not be what I think it is. Are you pulling two guilt trips on me in one night?"

"No."

"But you're asking for something. It must be serious. You don't ask me to do something for you unless it's really serious, considering the subject matter we've been talking about all day."

"It is," I agreed.

"What is it, Jimmy? What do you want?" He looked at me, curious.

"If you ever feel the urge to swallow a bottle of pills again, will you please put down the bottle and call me?"

"I suppose I can do that."

"Don't suppose anything," I said curtly. "You can and you will."

"Yes, I will, but you can't be around all day every day," he pointed out, a flicker of worry crossed his face then vanished as quickly as it arrived. "What happens then?"

"Then call Cuddy, call one of your crew, call a suicide hotline, call 911, knit a scarf, do a crossword puzzle, do anything but swallow the damn pills."

"Um..okay, Jimmy. Okay," he said, a faint grin tugging at his mouth. "Got any yarn? I guess I should learn to knit."

* * *

I waited until he had finished brushing his teeth before walking in and slipping my arms around his waist. I stared at our reflections and he did the same. 

"Aren't we in a cuddly mood," Greg mused to me and our mirror images.

"It's one of the things I'm good for," I said, and planted a kiss on his neck. "It's fair to say that I'm _great_ at it."

"Nobody does it better," he replied with a chuckle. "James Wilson, Cuddler Extraordinairre. You should put that on your business cards."

"It doesn't quit fit with 'Oncologist'."

"Hmm...you're a doctor, a cuddler, and _picky_. A man of many talents. A regular polymath."

"Yeah, that's me."

"Indeed it is."

"Greg?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"A tall, unshaven guy who walks around with a cane."

"What do you really see?"

That gave him a pause. I waited patiently for an answer, letting him take all the time he needed. This was the kind of question that couldn't have some sort of snarky comeback. I wanted a real answer and he was thinking of one. I half-expected him to brush it off and stalk back to the bedroom and never bring it up again.

"Would you like to know what I'm seeing right now?" he asked quietly.

"Please."

"I see a guy with a long way to go, but with a little help he might get there."


	42. Chapter 42

_A/N: Alrighty folks, I think this story has run its course and this will be the last chapter. Thanks to all my readers. I couldn't ask for a better audience._ :)

* * *

"Stop staring at me," Greg muttered into his pillow. His back was to me, and all I could see was a silver-blue outline in the dark bedroom. "It's starting to get creepy." 

"I'm just keeping an eye on what's mine," I said, and heard a faint chuckle float up from his side of the bed.

"That phrase sounds familiar," he said languidly.

I didn't need to see his face to know he was smirking. "You belong to me, Greg."

"That sounds familiar, too. Wait until I'm asleep," he said, not bothering to turn around, "then you can ogle me all you want."

"I want to ogle you now."

"At midnight?"

"Time means nothing when it comes to you."

"Answer me this–how can you ogle me with the lights out?"

"I know what you look like."

"I suppose you do. Next you'll want to cuddle and keep my up all night by telling me all about your silly little pipe dreams."

"Cuddling sounds like a good idea." I climbed over and wrapped an arm around his middle, being careful not to thwack him in the elbow with the cast, and placed a few fluttery kisses on his shoulder. He grunted, but I don't know if it was in surprise or dismay. Either way, he was stuck with me cuddling for the rest of the night.

"I was just kidding, Jimmy."

"I'm not."

"Tell me about your pipe dreams. Maybe you can bore me into a coma and I'll actually get some sleep tonight."

"I never really had any pipe dreams," I began, resting my head on his pillow. "Since I was a kid I wanted to be doctor. I guess you could say that my dream came true."

"Lucky you. You never wanted to be a fireman or a baseball player or a big movie star?"

"Nope."

"You were probably the geekiest kid in school. I'll bet you had a chemistry set."

"As a matter of fact, I did. I nearly blew up the garage."

"Yup, that sounds like my Jimmy," he snickered.

"David was always the big dreamer of the Wilson family."

He paused for a few beats before asking, "What was his big dream?"

"To find the cure for diabetes. Our grandfather died from diabetes related complications when David and I were in our teens. For the longest time he went around saying that he would find the cure and be rich and famous and none of us would ever have to work again."

"That was rather noble of him."

"Yeah, it was," I sighed. "That was David. He didn't want to be just a doctor, he wanted to be the biggest and best doctor in the world. Maybe he would have found the cure. Who knows?"

"You still blame yourself for what happened to David, don't you? It wasn't your fault. I told you to let go of your guilt."

"I know. Maybe someday I'll be able to."

His hand encircled mine as much as the cast would allow. "You do have a pipe dream, Jimmy. You want to save the world, starting with your brother and me. It's too late for David, but not me. Isn't that right?"

"I wish you would consider going to therapy."

"I wish you would quit worrying so much."

"Look, if by some miracle you happen to change your mind about therapy–"

"You'll be the first to know, Dr. Worrywart."

"I know of a few good therapists."

"I'm sure you do, and I'm sure they're dying to get a crack at me, to figure out what makes me tick."

"They want to help you."

"That's what they all say. You worry too much, Jimmy."

"Greg," I said, hugging him closer. "I'm worried about you. I'll worry about you tonight, I'll worry about you tomorrow, and I'll worry about you until my last dying breath."

–The End.


End file.
